Gill Allen/Rex ShutterstockIt’s fair to say shoppers around England freaked out a bit too much after a 5p charge became law back in October…
But new research shows that in a standard, English way we’ve been pretty passive aggressive in dealing with this and have helped ourselves to 520 million carrier bags worth a total of £26.7 million since the charge came in.
In a big middle finger up to the government (how dare they try and save the planet), the survey revealed that in the last three months, shoppers have grabbed a bag at the checkout and not owned up to it, with three being nicked per person each month.
This man is so angry about #plasticbags, he’s willing to ghost shop to cause everyone inconvenience pic.twitter.com/2TkQDyqNii
— Felicity Morse (@FelicityMorse) October 5, 2015
According to the study by website VoucherCodesPro.co.uk more than half of supermarket shoppers admitted to pinching a carrier bag after forgetting to bring their own.
More than a third believe the law is just a money-making exercise, whilst a quarter resented paying the fee. It’s only 5p, for fuck sake…
The poll of almost 3,000 adults across England also showed that millions of people were lying at self-checkouts and tapping in zero bags taken when they actually had.
ReutersAccording to the research, the north west was the carrier bag theft capital of England with 22% of those quizzed admitting to pinching a bag. The north east was second in the league of shame with 19% and East Midlands was third with 16%.
When the law was first introduced a load of thefts of shopping baskets were being reported as fed up customers who had forgotten to bring a bag walked out of stores with the baskets.
Tesco resorted to putting security tags on its baskets after a third were stolen from one store in Greater Manchester alone in the first week of the 5p fee and it and even tagged its 10p Bags for Life in a store in south west London.
Scenes as Asda customer tries to escape without paying for his #plasticbags pic.twitter.com/e47oKIasQG
— General Bauboles (@GeneralBoles) October 5, 2015
With these kind of more extreme measures, shit like this could become a more regular occurrence…
