Boots starts phased ban on plastic bags

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 24, 2019

UK health and beauty retail giant Boots is phasing out plastic bags from its stores with the aim of being plastic bag-free by next year. They’re being replaced with unbleached brown paper bags and will see the company removing 40 million plastic bags annually, which adds up to 900 tonnes of single-use plastic.

The move comes as consumers are increasingly judgemental about the sustainability steps that the retailers they patronise do (or do not) take.

The changeover started on Monday with 53 of the company’s shops no longer having plastic bags available. All 2,485 stores will transition to paper bags in the next half-year.

However, the new paper bags won't be free, even though they theoretically could be as they don't come under the legislation that means plastic bags must be charged for (they carry a 5p charge). The paper bags will cost 5p, 7p or 10p, depending on their size, with all the profits being donated to charity.

When the plastic bag levy was first introduced several years ago, a number of retailers, including many fashion companies, switched to paper bags as alternatives that would avoid them having to charge their customers for what, in the case of many fashion products, was a necessity. 

But while plastic bag use overall has fallen, progress has stalled and a plastic bag remains the default option for most consumer product purchases.