Environmental campaigners have called on the government to learn from its own successes after official figures showed the use of single-use supermarket plastic bags had fallen 98% since retailers in England began charging for them in 2015.
Annual distribution of plastic carrier bags by seven leading grocery chains plummeted from 7.6bn in 2014 to 133m last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Monday.
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Self serving checkouts ask you how many bags you want and charge for them in the UK. I have seen a growth in adults using backpacks, it wasn’t the norm before the bag charge.
Yeah I use my backpack, much better for carrying heavy groceries
Doesn’t everyone else just click no bags? Free bags baby.
If you have like, more than a few things and click no bags they often freeze and signal an employee to override. Annoying when you brought a bag
Cameras, I mean you could pretend to scan stuff and walk out if you wanted.
@Wooly @Magnus I click no bags… after I’ve scanned them.
What’s the outcome of that?
@Wooly I pay for the bags, but only once.
Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? Either you scan them, or tap however many bags at the end. Not both.
Btw you don’t need to @ me when replying, this is double bag scanning but for Lemmy.
Yes, that was kind of the point.
(The @ ing is because I’m replying from Mastodon, it does that by default)
Even the federators get confused by federation.
Oh fair, first mastadon person I’ve met.
I was in Maine recently and they charge for bags there. At Walmart, the self checkout staff member was also selling bags to the people who needed them, in addition to monitoring everything else that happens at self checkout.
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The supermarket close to my home has self checkout, you just have to scan the bag in addition to your products.
In Canada we just fully banned plastic bags. Walmart just doesn’t offer any bags at self checkout anymore besides the reusable ones. It’s kind of annoying if you forget to bring bags but it’s not a huge deal. If I’m walking I’ll just fill my personal grocery cart, or if I’m driving I’ll just throw everything loose in my car. If I do need a bag I’ll just spend $0.25 on a reusable bag.
It’s really not a big deal like a lot of people expected
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Which is actually making the central issue - pollution and GHGs - worse than if we just had thin-film single use bags.
I’m in a conservative small town. My Walmart no longer even sells one use grocery bags! They had signs up for a couple months before hand.
Tesco and Sainsbury’s usually just have the bags at the entrance to the self checkout and you just scan the bag before using it.
They have a lot of self-checkouts in the UK - there’s a member of staff on hand to help and they usually dish out bags although in some places you can just grab and scan a bag. If you wanted to not pay for one you could but the staff member and cameras are watching so it isn’t all relying on honesty.