Sainsbury’s "take an old bag shopping" campaign has already been criticised for being sexist and oldist. Now it seems it is just a sop to green sentiment.
Going to the supermarket this evening I noticed I’d been awarded an extra point on Sainsbury’s Nectar loyalty award scheme because I reused a plastic bag. But does Sainsbury’s honestly think this is an incentive?
A quick look at what Nectar points will earn you suggests not. One Nectar point will buy you 1/1400th of Coldplay’s new CD. If you want to save up for two bottles of white wine you would need to reuse a plastic bag every day for 10 years. To earn a Sainsbury’s restaurant voucher, you would have to reuse between 13,000 and 21,000 plastic bags.
Real incentives could play a role in changing behaviour. Fresh & Wild, which was recently bought by Wholefoods, refunds customers 5 pence for every reused bag. Not a fortune, but perhaps enough to make people think twice. Experience in Ireland shows that small fines can also work.
But with it's paltry "benefits" for reusing plastic bags Sainsbury's is hoping it can be seen as promoting green lifestyles without making any real commitment to doing so.
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