Sunday News

English supermarkets braced for chaos and confusion at checkouts as 5p plastic carrier bag charge comes into force TOMORROW

“Supermarkets are braced for chaos and confusion at the checkout tomorrow as the 5p charge for plastic carrier bags launches in England.

Bosses fear a complicated list of exemptions to the new rule could lead to disputes as customers are told they must pay for the bags, in a Government scheme to reduce litter and protect wildlife.”

The daily mail describes how the government is putting a new rule in place, which will require customers to pay 5p for each carrier bag that they want to purchase.

The news page describes how this action has been done in order to help save the environment from the pollution caused by the plastic bags being thrown away. However, personally I think that this action has been done in order to generate a profit from the supermarket customers who will be forced to purchase the bags especially, at for the first few months when not everyone will know about the changed “law”. Moreover, people will also be “forced” to pay the 5p during times when they will be out and decide to quickly purchase something from a shop and so would not be carrying a bag with them. In addition, the customers will have no chance to negotiate about getting a carrier bag for free as the news page describes how;

“Checkout operators have been given special training to deal with argumentative shoppers who object to paying the mandatory charge if they have not brought their own bags to stores.”