Carrier Bags
In response to Ministers from Defra, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Office, and in the context of widespread public interest, the UK Retail sector has agreed to take action and is proposing to adopt a shared objective with the government and WRAP to reduce the environmental impact of carrier bags by 25% by the end of 2008.
In becoming a signatory to this statement, retailers have agreed:
- to work jointly with government and WRAP to monitor the environmental impact of carrier bags and to agree a baseline figure from which to measure reduction;
- to work with the above parties to reduce the overall environmental impact by 25% by the end of 2008; and
- to review experiences by the end of 2008 in order to determine what would be required in order to make a further reduction by 2010.
- by reducing the environmental impact of each individual carrier bag;
- by encouraging customers to significantly reduce the number of carrier bags they use; and
- by enabling the recycling of more carrier bags where appropriate.
Evaluation of the progress achieved so far is currently being undertaken and discussion between WRAP and the participating retailers will shortly take place to determine what activities and initiatives have been successful and what additional actions can be taken to further reduce the impact of carrier bags during the course of 2008 and beyond.
The following have signed up:
Alliance Boots
Association of Convenience Stores
Booths Central Office
British Retail Consortium
Carrier Bag Consortium
Co-operative Group
Federation of Small Businesses Scotland
Home Retail Group
John Lewis Partnership & Waitrose
Marks & Spencer
Musgrave
Next Group Plc
Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association
Packaging and Industrial Films Association
Primark Stores Ltd
Sainsbury's
Scottish Grocers Federation
Somerfield
Spar (UK) Ltd
Tesco
WM Morrison
