If you’ve been keeping your ear to the ground when it comes to eco-friendly business practices, you’ll already know that Morrisons recently trialled a doubling of their reusable plastic bag fee from 10p to 20p. They also launched a reusable paper bag available for 20p. It was all done in an effort to find more ways to cut down on the use of plastics, and it seems to have been a success since Morrisons will now be rolling out the new 20p paper bag in stores across the country.
That’s a move from eight trial stores to 494 stores nationwide, so it means a significant drop in single-use plastics, much more money raised for good causes, and far more eco-friendly paper bags entering circulation.
Each new bag is made right here in the UK – they come from sustainably sourced forests in Wales. While many might assume that paper bags can’t hold their heavier groceries, the new Morrisons bags can take up to an impressive 16 kg in weight. You’ll find them available in all Welsh stores in April and in all English and Scottish stores from May.
As summed up by Andy Atkinson, group customer and marketing director for Morrisons: “We are taking another meaningful step that will remove an estimated 1,300 tonnes of plastic out of the environment each year. Our customers have told us that reducing plastic is their number one environmental concern, so introducing the paper bag across the nation will provide another way of reducing the plastic in their lives.”
And Morrisons aren’t the only ones looking beyond the 5p charge as a way to cut down on single-use plastic bags. Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Sainsbury’s and Tesco have all scrapped them completely, instead selling reusable ‘bags for life’. Sainsbury’s sells one type of reusable bag for 5p and another for 10p, while Aldi, Asda, and Lidl have upped the charge to 9p.