Is it just me, or is Marks and Spencer trying very hard to be green? I’m all about being green, but I’m not one for supporting pathetic, horrible business ideas, and Marks & Spencer have really done it with this one.

Apparently, they’ve conducted research which concluded that the average life of a plastic bag was short-lived, and that it was bound to hit the trash can shortly after the goods were purchased and handed to the customer in the bag. So, instead of learning from better business in the United States, they’ve now decided to charge every customer 5 pence per plastic bag, like that’s going to make any sense. So far, this applies to Marks & Spencer Food only; the flashy plastic bag image must stay with the clothing or what?

Look, I think it’s simply a stupid idea to ‘help the planet’ by charging people for bags. Do they really think that someone who’s spending £50 in a department store will mind paying 5p for a bag in a country where the sales tax / VAT is 17.5%? No! Not only that, the best solution to a problem is not to penalize the end, but to tackle it at the root.

Why doesn’t Marks & Spencer switch to paper bags? There are environmental hazards with paper too. But come on now, it’s a step in the right direction. This attempt at winning the ‘green supermarkets war’ is a bad one; all Marks & Spencer will do is turn off customers. Anyone with even a little common sense can see that there is a problem with this model to help the planet. Just charging customers is a pathetic publicity stunt, one at which I hope Marks & Spencer fails, because it is an extremely superficial attempt to justify their savings and profits above and beyond a rather noble cause.

Help the UK and the environment by switching to paper bags that can decay, Marks & Spencer, not by passing on your cost to the customer. A fine should be imposed on all stores that supply customers with plastic bags. Then we’ll see who charges 50 pence and who switches to paper bags.

On another note, why isn’t the UK switching to paper bags?

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 4:00 am and is filed under Opinion, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.