Sainsbury’s introduce recycled bags
Sainsbury’s have announced that they will be introducing new carrier bags made with 30% recycled material. The change of material will apparently result in them consuming 6500 tonnes less plastic per year.
In light of Tesco’s recent attempts to buff up their green credentials Sainsbury’s announcement does smack a little of bandwagon jumping but it’s a change for the better either way. It should however be pointed out that recycling material does have energy costs of it’s own and the environmental damage caused by discarded plastic bags remains a problem. I would have preferred to see a two pronged approach of using biodegradable material and strong incentives encouraging customers to reuse their bags. Tesco have adopted this policy (biodegradable bags will be introduced at their stores this month) although it’s unclear at this time how effective their use of reward points to encourage reuse has been.
Via Hippyshopper. More at the BBC.