One thing that really frustrates me is the amount of plastic shopping bags that we accumulate in our house over the course of a month. Unfortunately, Rushmoor council’s recycling facility won’t accept plastic bags in their recycling collection, and since we do all pretty much all our grocery shopping online with Tesco now, I rarely get a chance to go to the Supermarket to return the bags.
I own a car, so in theory, I could drive out of my way to return them, but it’s hardly an “environmental” solution, and what’s more it completely defeats the point of shopping on-line in the first place…
However, the solution to this problem is elegantly simple: Tesco (and indeed all the other online grocers) should encourage their drivers to collect used plastic bags from their online customers when they make a delivery. They can then take them back to the store/depot for recycling. They could even go one stage further and collect glass bottles and any other excess packaging that I have purchased from them but was unable to recycle through my blue bin.
Not only would this assist them with their environmental obligations, but it would also be an added benefit of shopping online with them (especially for lazy people like me!), which would ultimately increase their sales.
If you also think this is a good idea, then I would encourage you to write to Terry Leahy, (Tesco’s Chief Executive).
Update
Soon after submitting this blog post, I found out that Tesco will already accept plastic bags from home delivery customers via their drivers, so well done Tesco! However, I still think they should also accept glass bottles and get their drivers to actively promote this service.