The Co-op has become the latest UK supermarket to halt the sale of ‘bags for life’ from its stores, warning that the reusable plastic bag has become the ‘new single-use carrier’.
The bags will be phased out immediately from all 2,600 Co-op stores, so that once stocks are gone, they will not be replaced and sales will cease.
Customers still wishing to purchase a bag will be able to buy a compostable carrier bag for 10p that offers a sustainable second use as a kitchen caddy bin liner.
In 2019, Greenpeace reported an increase in the amount of plastic produced by UK supermarkets – to 900,000 tonnes per year – driven largely by sales of more than 1.5 billion bags for life.
Bags for life use more plastic in their production than traditional ‘single-use’ carrier bags, thus increasing the amount of plastic in circulation.
The Co-op’s new initiative will remove 29.5 million bags for life, weighing around 870 tonnes of plastic, from sale each year.
The UK’s sixth biggest supermarket has welcomed the increase in the carrier bag levy to 10p in April, but has called on the government to go further still.
Its new ‘Bag to Rights’ report, launched today to accompany the announcement on the bags-for-life ban, sets out policy recommendations for government, which include:
- Requiring major retailers to report sales of all reusable bags, as well as single-use bags, to increase transparency and assess the true impact of the carrier bag levy
- Requiring all ‘single-use’ carrier bags to be certified compostable
- The introduction of a minimum 50p price for reusable bags, to create a greater perceived value and encourage customer reuse, instead of treating them as single-use bags
Co-op Food chief executive Jo Whitfield said: “Many shoppers are regularly buying so called ‘bags for life’ to use just once and it’s leading to a major hike in the amount of plastic being produced.
“To help tackle plastic pollution and the use of unnecessary plastic, we will be ceasing the sale of bags for life when current stocks are exhausted.
“We’re also ensuring all of our members and customers have access to a low price point option that’s more environmentally friendly, alongside more durable bags at a higher price point.”
Helen Bird, strategic engagement manager at the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP), said: “All bags, regardless of the material they are made from, impact on the environment. The most important thing to reduce this impact is reuse. Just as we all now carry a mask about ourselves, we should be doing the same with shopping bags.
“Supermarkets have a responsibility to incentivise this and we would like to see transparent reporting on all types of shopping bags – whether they are made of traditional plastic, compostable plastic or paper.
“There will be times when we forget to bring a bag and in these instances we can still reuse those bags, and at the end of their life we recycle them at supermarket collection points. For Co-op’s shoppers this means that they are able to reuse carrier bags and if they have a food waste collection then they can use it as a caddy liner.”
Image courtesy of Co-operative Group Limited.
