Today's most viewed
M & S to impose a bag charge
Marks and Spencer has this week introduced a 5p charge for carrier bags.
The chain, which has Simply Food stores in Guiseley and Ilkley, handed out more than 15 million free reusable bags for life to customers in the last month in preparation to introducing the charge.
Charging for carrier bags is a major step towards the company's commitments to reduce carrier bag usage by a third and send no waste to landfill from its operations by 2012.
All profits generated from the charge will go to environmental charity Groundwork and be used to create or improve greener living spaces' such as parks, play areas and gardens in neighbourhoods around the UK.
It is expected that around 40 neighbourhoods will benefit in the next 12 months.
The store will also be making two additional changes to help reduce the environmental impact of carrier bags even further.
From May onwards M&S customers will be able to return any unwanted or used carrier bags to any till point or customer service desk at M&S stores for recycling.
It will also be the first major UK food retailer to begin to use a new standard food carrier bag made from 100 per cent post consumer waste in all of its stores nationwide.
This move will reduce the amount of virgin plastic M&S uses by 3,400 tonnes per year.
M&S bags for life, which are also made from 100 per cent recycled plastic, have reverted to their original price of 10p from Tuesday.
Stuart Rose, M&S Chief Executive said: "Our stores are now getting ready to introduce food carrier bag charging on May 6.
"This will be one of the most significant changes we've made since we launched Plan A last January and we believe that it will help us to reduce the number of single use carrier bags our customers use by around 280 million each year.
"M&S customers have certainly responded extremely positively to our bag for life giveaway and we hope that they will bring the bags with them each time they shop with us."
10:10am Sunday 11th May 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
