Well we're not that suprised. Supermarkets as we know, could have put a stop to this nonsense a long time ago, but they continue to drag out he death of the plastic bag for their own reasons.

This week I was contacted by someone in Bristol, upset about what Sainsburys claims it's doing and what we see in practice....

"I think Sainsburys are making statements that are not true.

The shop on the triangle, like other sainsburys, has cards and posters up saying that they will have removed plastic bags from the counter in an effor to reduce the amount they use. It also says on their website that

'From Wednesday 1 October we'll be removing free bags from our checkouts to encourage bag re-use. Customers who still require carrier bags will now need to ask for one.'

However, at busy times, this is not happening. Bags are still lying on the checkout counter for people to pick up and use freely. Additionally, customers are still being offered plastic bags, rather than having to ask for them.
I did mention to one of the counter staff that she should maybe remove the bags from the counter as the poster beside her till said so, but she just told me to talk to the manager.

This is the link to their website: http://www.j-sainsburys.co.uk/cr/index.asp?pageid=48&casestudy=1#story1

Sainsburys has sought good publicity from this initiative, and I feel that they are not being truthful as, in practice, they are not doing what they claim to be doing. "

If you would like to contact them about this:

Telephone:
0800 636262

By post:
Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd
33 Holborn
London
EC1N 2HT

If you see this happening and don't like it - don't shop at Sainsburys.

Things you should be aware of by now:

Prince Charles speaks out on threat to marine life from plastic

The Prince of Wales has spoken of his deep concern for the threat posed to marine wildlife by Britain's "throwaway culture" that is dumping plastic bags and other litter at sea. - The Telegraph 12/9/08

Sainsbury’s move to cut use of single-use shopping bags
...but if you can find it one the web then you're a better person than me.

and finally...

The world's largest plastic bag company, today announced the closure of its Mt Olive, North Carolina plant
...because they know that now we're all suckers for re-usable bags - stop consuming folks.

Seems like the village shop in the Archers has taken the Plastic Bag pledge. Cool, but when did this happen?

With the Archers on board, surely it's just a matter of time!

They are also looking at becoming a Transition Town. (http://www.transitiontowns.org/).

Obviously Ambridge is where it's at!

Just been put onto this web service http://wordle.net. It's pretty cool, so here's a tag cloud taken from the APB feed. Check it out.

...that is blue on the map.

The campaign claimed it's bag free status on July the 5th, with a 75% reduction in single use bags, and 90% shops on board – over ½ of
which have already switched.

They also have this fantastic animated video made by the local primary school. Enjoy!

There's a news story doing the rounds (see 'Supermarkets clash with Benn on plastic bags') that says that the supermarkets are upset at the government plans to impose a plastic bag tax should the supermarkets 'voluntary' code not produce results.

How did this upset manifest itself? Go on guess?.. (not - ) Suprisingly it was in the form of a threat! The government will risk losing the co-operation of the supermarkets in future voluntary agreements.

And how well has this voluntary arrangement served us? Sir Terry of Tesco said in this 2006 article in the Guardian that "Tesco is good at marketing, which can sell the concept." Meaning they could sell the concept of people moving away from plastic carriers. Bear that in mind when you read that "Tesco said its usage is down 40 per cent" (Businessgreen.com 26 June 08) I think Tesco is just good at marketing!

What 'down 40%' doesn't tell you, is that even if we had this made this reduction on day one of their 2006 pledge, then by now, they would only have given away 4.8 billion environmentally dangerous bags (and counting!) in the last 2 years.

They're doing it for our good remember. In contrast, if anyone had listed to us and Abolished Plastic Bags 2 years ago then Tesco would have given away 0, zero, zilch, no plastic bags in that time. And it wouldn't have just been Tesco, we would have taken 34 billion environmentally dangerous bags out of the system in that time in the UK.

Don't believe the hype, take action now, and shop elsewhere!

That's it...I'm moving to Banchory! (Check the blog at: http://banchoryagainstplastic.wordpress.co)

First because of the great primary school, which has just won a national award for their work on plastic bags. (see previous blog: Banchory Primary gets top award) Well Done!

Second, because not only were they campaign of the week recently, but I love this idea...'Stickers for your Steering Wheel' I quote: "So many shoppers tell us that they have left their reusable bags in the
car, we had 2,000 of these stickers produced and gave them away with
the bags. "

Brilliant!

Campaign of the week is the Banchory bags Campaign up in Scotland.

On Saturday they had a day of anti-plastic bag promotion, with volunteers giving away free 'Cleaner Greener Banchory' bags at the St. Ternan's Fair.

They've got 69 out of 73 shops to take part and many are displaying posters made by local primary school children.

It's a great campaign, with a lot of hard work going into preparing the ground to get people behind the cause. Keep up to date with their progress at: http://banchoryagainstplastic.wordpress.com

About 25 mins into last night's Springwatch Coast special on BBC 2, we were treated to a 10 min segment about polition in the seas and around our coasts caused by plastic.

Great to see the hard work of the people of Modbury recognised, and to have the plastic bag message re-inforced.

You can see the programme again on the BBCiplayer fro the next week.

www.bbc.co.uk/springwatch

Check this out:
http://www.carrierbagtax.com/whatpeoplesay.htm

I love this, it's got everything. Passion, hate, good points bad points, out of date opinion, fear...

What's really great about it, is the way it actually adds to what we've been saying all along. Getting rid of plastic bags is not the be all and end all, of it. It's a step along the way. As such it's great to see that people are also against paper bags, MacDonalds, cars, litter and so on, but a bit perplexing about how they then twist their logic to defend the plastic bag!

I particularly like 'Dr Gerard McCrum, Oxford, Letters to the Editor, The Daily Telegraph - 24.07.07' and his long thought out argument about how one shopper not using makes no difference. He equates one plastic bag to 100yards of driving, so by the time you've left the car park you've undone all that good work.

This is the problem of scale. It's often used to belittle the efforts of an individual - 'what difference will it make if I do it?' The plastic bag is a great example of the impact of lots of little choices made each day by lots of individuals. Our actions already result in the use of approx 11-17 billion bags each year. That's the impact of little old me.

Back to Dr. Gerard McCrum. Using his calculation (if that's what it is) 11 billion bags is the equivalent to 1100 billion yards of driving (I reckon that's 625 million miles - or driving to the moon and back 1300 times)

So don't be fooled - these figures are for the UK only by the way - small changes can have a big impact. Oh, and while we're at it, we'll continue to press the people with the power to make the big changes to make those as well.