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It's time to dispel the carrier bag myths

Sun Packaging News and PR from Sun Packaging - Published 27 April 2017 It's been over a year since the UK government brought in the 5p carrier bag tax in England, catching up with the rest of the UK in charging for single use carrier bags in large retailers.
There's no doubt about it, since October 2015 there has been a definite surge in carrier bag 'awareness', whether that means simply forgetting your reusable bags and cursing yourself, or indeed refusing a carrier bag when offered one, and struggling along the town centre with armfuls of shopping.

We've also seen a noticeable change in demand from the big players in recent years. Tesco and Morrison supermarkets have both recorded drops of around 80% since the charge was introduced.

Retailers are also expected (but not legally bound) to donate the proceeds of the charge to good causes. From October 2015 until reporting deadline of May 2016, for example Asda supermarkets donated a very healthy sum of £2.5m to good causes.

There are very important additional factors to think about when looking at these statistics. While the net proceeds of the carrier bag charge go to good causes, the VAT payable makes a very favourable sum to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. From the full 1st 6 months report published online* we can see that the tax man has pocketed £8.75m. As this is money previously unavailable before carrier bag charging came into force, questions need to be asked as to where this money is being spent.

So over a year on from Carrier Bag Charging, there's still a lot of confusion and misinformation regarding carrier bags. Here are some facts:

Read the full article at www.sunpackaging.co.uk/blog/
Are we as a nation becoming more carrier bag aware?

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