Guardian Unlimited Business

Tesco unveiled plans yesterday to offer shoppers a financial incentive to use fewer plastic carrier bags.

In the first such scheme, Britain's biggest supermarket group will encourage shoppers to re-use bags by offering one point for the Clubcard loyalty scheme (worth 1p) for every carrier bag they do not use. It is the latest in a series of recent moves by the big grocery chains as each tries to show it is greener than the other...

The number of carrier bags handed out to British shoppers - 17bn a year, or 280 a person - is fast becoming an emotive issue. Only one in every 200 bags is recycled and an estimated 100,000 tonnes of plastic bags (the same weight as 70,000 cars) are thrown away in the UK each year...

Tesco's initiative comes two months after Ikea began charging 5p a bag. The Swedish furniture group says plastic bag usage at British stores has since dropped by 95% - far more than it had expected. Its UK customers got through 32m carrier bags last year - in the year after starting to charge, the figure will be just 1.6m.

Link: Tesco offers carrot to reduce use of plastic carrier bags.