The 5p Carrier Bag Tax

A 5p charge for plastic bags in England was introduced by the government on 5^th October in a bid to discourage their use. Scotland and Wales have previously applied this carrier tax which has proven to be really effective with a dramatic drop of more than 80% in carrier bags handed out at supermarkets in 2014.

The carrier tax is aimed at single use carrier bags. In simple terms this means all the flimsy ‘vest bags’ that you currently get for free in the supermarket, but also the majority of bags you get in high-street stores too. In fact, to avoid paying the tax, you need to use plastic bags that are more than 70 microns thick, or paper bags! Customers are far more likely to spend a little more so that they can buy a bag which they can reuse again and again, than have to pay 5p for a rubbish one, so the other option is to offer a “Bag for Life” scheme.

And of course there are lots of sectors that are exempt! These include:

• Food that is unwrapped on in a container that may leak
• Bags used in airports
• Mail order or click and collect bags
• Bags handed out with promotional items in
• For services where there is no sale of goods (such as dry-cleaning, shoe repairs etc.)
• Businesses with less than 250 employees

More information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/carrier-bag-charges-retailers-responsibilities

Overall we hope that this charge will have a positive impact on Burgass with more retailers wanting better quality bags to help their customers avoid the tax.

This post was written by Louise @ Burgass

Categorised in: News