This new scheme is replacing the supermarket chain's 'penny back' scheme, which saw customers given a penny for each bag they re-used at the checkout. Last year saw shoppers re-use 64 million bags and Sainsbury's estimates this equates to a total saving of 678 tonnes of plastic.
For this re-use, Sainsbury's gave back a total of 640,000 to customers and most of this money was put into charity boxes placed near checkouts to support local causes. The supermarket will continue to have charity collection boxes for customers to put their change in.
James McKechnie, Sainsbury’s recycling manager said that Sainsbury's still encourages shoppers to re-use their carrier bags where possible. But where carrier bags have become unusable because they’re broken or torn, then the “recycling bank provides a sound environmental alternative to simply throwing them away with the household rubbish,” he added.
Banks
Sainbury's will be using 140 litre Envirobanks from LINPAC environmental to be placed at the store entrances. Mr McKechnie said: “Envirobank is made from post-consumer recycled plastic so meets the requirements of Sainsbury's green procurement policy.”
Other supermarket chains, such as Asda and Tesco, have already introduced plastic bag recycling banks at their stores. Tesco is also now using degradable plastic carriers at all its stores in the UK (see letsrecycle.com story).
These plastic bag recycling schemes come as the Scottish Executive considers introducing a levy on plastic bags (see letsrecycle.com story).
Retailers and other parties were successful in dissuading the UK government from introducing a charge on consumers for each plastic bag they use, but the Executive is considering introducing a measure for Scotland.
A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's said she knew that both Westminster and the Scottish Executive have been considering an additional carrier bag tax but did not know when if at all this would be introduced. “When government consulted us on our views on such a tax we replied that if it were introduced, then it should not only be on plastic bags as it is in Ireland, but on paper bags as well to avoid the reliance being shifted to those.
She added that “large retailers already pay a 'tax' based on the weight of packaging sold the previous year. The most expensive part of the tax is on plastics packaging and most expensive of all is on carrier bags.”
Subscribe for free