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From left: Michelle Cotton with baby Beatrice, 2, Kathy Manners, Ruth Joppling, Debbie Haigh. Front (left) Orlando Joppling and John Ackers |
Bin the bags or face boycott, store told
Campaigners ready to take on supermarket giant
SHOPPERS in Newington Green have threatened to boycott their local Tesco Express store unless it bans free plastic bags.
If the action goes ahead, it would make this small corner of Islington one of the first areas in the country to take on the supermarket giant over its plastic bags policy.
An action group has already received pledges from dozens of small independent shops in the area that they will stop supplying plastic bags.
The group’s survey of 100 shoppers in Newington Green revealed that 94 per cent would support a ban on free plastic bags and 79 per cent would pay up to 5p for a reusable bag.
Classical musician Orlando Joppling, a spokesman for the group, said: “The issue about plastic bags has become so serious that we feel we can no longer rely on stores to say they are gradually phasing them out.
“It’s not just that our wildlife is being choked by plastic in our rivers and seas, but locally plastic bags litter our streets and green spaces and are a terrible eyesore.
“Every shop we’ve targeted so far has agreed to replace plastic bags with reusable ones for the sake of the environment. We’re asking Tesco Express – the only major retailer in our area – to do the responsible thing and ban the plastic bag.”
Campaigners will be asking shoppers to sign a pledge that they will stop accepting plastic bags. They will be urged to boycott any shop that refuses to ban free plastic bags.
By ending the use of free bags – and selling cornstarch bags when customers need one – shopkeepers would save money, as they would not have to buy plastic bags, according to campaigners.
To ease the transition, Islington Council is supplying 3,000 organic Fairtrade cotton bags, with a Newington Green design, to shops. They will be given out free to shoppers who have forgotten their bag.
A Tesco spokesman said it believed the carrot works better than the stick. “Offering an incentive to our customers to cut down on their carrier bag usage is far more effective than forcing them to do it,” he added.
“We have a number of schemes, including our Green Club points, which encourage customers to reuse their bags. We have been encouraging customers to reuse bags since 2006 so it’s not a recent knee-jerk reaction.
“We provide recycling at every store and we’ve used a billion less carrier bags in that two-year period.” Its stores sell re-usable “bags for life”.
Marks and Spencer is phasing out plastic bags from this month. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called on all supermarkets to do the same by next year.
For more about the Newington Green campaign, go to www.plasticbagfreenewingtongreen.blogspot.com/ |
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