Marks and Spencers starts 5p plastic bag charge

After months of talking about it, and an official government stance in this year's budget that plastic shopping bags should be charged for, Marks & Spencer's has officially started charging 5p for every plastic shopping bag customers use.

Finally!

I know it's just one store for now, but it means a few million people a day will be deterred from getting a bag for a single sandwich or a soda, which happens ALL of the time. Prior to the charge coming into effect on May 6, every time I bought my lunch at an M&S it seemed everyone is front of me was getting a plastic bag for the tiniest of purchases, which made me want to smack them on the back of the head. Is it so hard to carry a small sandwich in your hand the whole 100 yards to your office if you don't have a reusable bag?

Me and the big guy have been bringing our own bags to stores for years and he now has his own discreet man bag, suitable for tough guys - a small black bag that folds up into the size of a pack of gum. He brings it everywhere with him now. My reusable bags are more flowery and when I forget one, I either try to hand carry what I've bought, or if I'm forced to get a plastic bag because I don;t have my own I a) mentally torture myself for being ditzy and then b) make sure I save it to put it into a specific bag recycling box, which they have at Tescos and Whole Foods.

I support a full ban on plastic shopping bags altogether, until they make them non petroleum based and completely bio-degradable. They aren't necessary and they leave a terrible legacy. 13 billion a year used in the UK alone, just sitting in landfill for the next thousand years. That's just nasty.

And if they aren't around people will be forced to use their owns bags, boxes, baskets and carts and that will be that. I doubt anyone will ever say 'Remember how great things were when we used to get those free little plastic bags?'

Find out more:
+ Official M&S bag charge press release
+Bag charge story in The Telegraph
+Country by country view of tackling plastic bag usage