Environmental campaigners have called on the government to learn from its own successes after official figures showed the use of single-use supermarket plastic bags had fallen 98% since retailers in England began charging for them in 2015.
Annual distribution of plastic carrier bags by seven leading grocery chains plummeted from 7.6bn in 2014 to 133m last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Monday.
They have a lot of self-checkouts in the UK - there’s a member of staff on hand to help and they usually dish out bags although in some places you can just grab and scan a bag. If you wanted to not pay for one you could but the staff member and cameras are watching so it isn’t all relying on honesty.