We’ve seen numerous businesses across the UK and beyond giving single-use plastic bags the boot in favour of paper bags, and now Boots has joined that global movements. They’ve promised to phase out all plastic bags from their stores by 2020, with brown paper bags coming to the rescue as an eco-friendly alternative.
Given that Boots has 2,485 outlets, the health and beauty chain will be removing an estimated 40 million plastic bags a year from use – that adds up to over 900 tonnes of single-use plastic.
As noted by Louise Edge, the head of Greenpeace UK’s ocean plastics campaign: “If our oceans had a doctor, what they would order is a drastic cut in the amount of single-use plastic in circulation. So it’s great to see a major high street brand like Boots listening to public concerns and ditching plastic bags.”
The new unbleached brown bags will cost 5p, 7p, or 10p, depending on size, and all profits will be donated to BBC Children in Need.
This move from Boots is set to complement an incredible 86% decrease in the sale of single-use plastic bags by England’s big seven supermarkets. It’s clearly an issue motivated as much by customer feedback as by environmental consciousness. As remarked by Helen Normoyle, the director of marketing at Boots UK:
“We have seen a significant shift in our customers’ attitudes towards plastics and recycling in recent years. Our new paper bags have been carefully tested to make sure that, over their entire life cycle, they are better for the environment, whilst still being a sturdy, practical option for customers who haven’t brought their own bags with them when shopping.”Even if your business isn’t quite the same size as Boots, you can still contribute to the demise of single-use plastic bags by dropping them from your own locations in favour of bags made from paper, cotton, jute, canvas, or polypropylene.
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