An “intrigued” reader called Mairead got in touch to see if we could find out when it became common practice for retailers to start charging its customers for paper bags.
“Just last weekend I was charged 10 cent for a paper bag in a national bookshop. Apparently some shops are charging as much as 60 cent,” she says.
“If I decide to do some spontaneous shopping, and buy multiple small items I have no choice but to buy a bag to put them in. After handing over payment It seems a little off-putting to be charged an additional amount to carry the items out of the store!”
She is not wrong. It is off-putting and on many levels it is ridiculous but it has become increasingly commonplace of late, although paying for other types of carrier bags has been standard for more than two decades.
Have yourself a merry last-minute Christmas. Shop early and forget perfect
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Back in 2002 a tax was attached to plastic bags. It currently stands at 22 cent and while there was some reluctance in the early days, Irish people quickly got on board – not least because after its introduction there was a dramatic reductions in the number of discarded plastic blighting our landscape.
In the year before the levy was rolled out, plastic bags made up as much as five per cent of the litter in Ireland, compared with less than 0.3 per cent now. The levy – which was revenue neutral with all the money raised going back into environmental measures – made a lot of sense.
But in more recent times, something more insidious and nonsensical has been happening.
For starters, supermarkets have largely phased out the so-called single-use plastic bags and have been charging more than 70 cent for heavier-duty plastic bags. The advantage for them is that bags that cost over 70 cent incur no levy, which means the shops make money on every single bag they sell.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, many retailers have started charging us for paper bags too and dressing it up as an environmental move.
The paper bag charges are – at least in Pricewatch’s view – a scam
One of the first out of the traps was Zara, which started charging customers 15 cent for its paper bags in the summer of 2022.
There was some negative reaction to the move but it wasn’t significant and other large retail chains quickly followed suit. And once the toothpaste was out of the jar, more and more retailers got on board the paper gravy train and didn’t just stop at clothes stores.
This time last year Marks & Spencer got rid of ifs plastic bags for life and introduced what it claimed were souped-up paper bags instead. Eason is another retailer that charges customers for paper bags, as does the accessories shop Claire’s.
Almost all of the retailers claim they have introduced the charges out of concern for the environment but we’re not buying it. Clothes, books and accessories are not the same as groceries and such purchases are often spontaneous and those spending the money might not be armed with a spare bag which they can use instead. And even if we do, do we really want to crumple up that dress or shirt and shove it into a rucksack, handbag or grocery bag or risk damaging our brand-new book before we have turned so much as a page?
Of course not. The paper bag charges are – at least in Pricewatch’s view – a scam. You might of course have a different view and if you do we’d be delighted to hear it.
