Poundland has launched a new range of ‘collectable’ plastic bags for life, while boasting they are one of its bestselling items, with 91 bought per minute.
However, the discounter has attracted the ire of plastic campaigners, who have called the approach “irresponsible”, since bags for life were widely seen as a means for retailers to reduce plastic carrier bag sales following the introduction of a compulsory charge for single-use ones.
Poundland’s latest bags for life are made from PET plastic, according to the retailer, and printed with ‘pop art’ designs featuring bestselling brands including Kellogg’s, Pringles and Heinz.
Poundland had ‘Captain Beany’, who has appeared in a number of reality TV shows including ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent, visit a Cardiff store last week in a publicity exercise marking the launch of 10 new designs.
The bags cost £1 or £1.50 and “have become collectors’ items because of the ever-changing range of slogans and images”, according to the variety discounter. It said they were “fully recyclable and made from 100% recycled materials”.
However, campaigners say flexible PET plastic is challenging to recycle in practice.
“Levels of reuse rely on behaviour change and how retailers influence people and their behaviour is really important,” said Alison Colclough, research director at campaign group Everyday Plastic.
“Poundland’s approach of making these bags collectable is not supporting the change that’s required. It’s one thing to own a bag for life but the crucial point in behaviour is then remembering to bring it back to the shops when you do your shopping.
“The plastic bag levy was introduced to reduce consumption of single-use plastic bags, and the widespread introduction of bags for life followed shortly after. It seems at odds for Poundland to be boasting of the high demand for bags for life, which were originally introduced as a measure aiming to reduce plastic consumption.”
She said PET bags were “theoretically recyclable” but added: “However, flexible plastics are the most challenging plastic packaging stream to recycle – with very limited household kerbside collections.
“Supermarket collection points do often accept a wide range of flexible plastics, but the challenge of recycling this waste stream remains.
“The Poundland bags are printed so there is a lot of ink to deal with. They would be collected with a range of other polymers, and often mixed materials and organic residue. All of these elements present a huge challenge to effective recycling.
“It is my opinion that pushing sales of reusable bags in this way is irresponsible,” Colclough added.
A Poundland spokesman said: “Sturdy bags have always been important to our customers, because many of them use public transport to get to and from our stores and therefore [rely] on ones they can reuse.
“Don’t forget too that customers have been incredibly creative with what they do with our bags for life – not just for carrying their shopping. Customers share how they use them online, for example to make cushion covers, as garden planters, even decorative art.”
Bags for life were popularised as an alternative to single-use plastic carriers, on the premise consumers could reuse them until they eventually wore out before buying another.
The 2015 introduction of a compulsory 5p charge for single-use carrier bags in large shops in England led to a 95% reduction in their sales by 2021, according to government data. It also prompted major supermarkets to withdraw them from sale altogether. The charge was doubled in 2021 to 10p and extended to retailers of all sizes.
However, Greenpeace data showed supermarket sales of bags for life, costing a few pence more than the minimum charge for a single-use ones, increased by 56% from 2018 to 2019. High levels of demand prompted a number of supermarkets to remove them from sale in favour of even heavier-duty or non-plastic alternatives.
Over time, ‘bag for life’ has become more of a catch-all term for reusable shopping bags costing anywhere up to £5, or more in some cases, with Poundland’s at the lower end of the price range.
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