Next week the most coveted accessory in Britain goes on sale. It’s a shopping bag designed by Anya Hindmarch — she who first popularised those irritating tote bags with black-and-white photos of dogs/children/seasides on the front. Handbags are what she does, but this one is special. It’s an outward sign that you are a good person.

It’s made in cream canvas and on the front it says, in cute, curly writing, “I’m NOT a Plastic Bag”. And it costs a fiver. From next week, it’ll be available from the website of the environmental group We Are What We Do (and from Hindmarch’s shop in Belgravia). And from April, when it’ll have rather less kudos, it’ll be on sale in selected branches of Sainsbury’s. It’s heartwarming, of course — but I can think of a better way of decluttering landfill sites with rather less self-advertisement.

I’m all for the sentiment behind the move. I have just returned from Marks & Spencer where I had a tussle with the nice shop assistant, who wanted to put my pot-plant first into a large plastic flower-carrier and then a plastic bag. He seemed wounded when I refused both. “But you will need a bag for these,” he said, scooping up my chocolate mousse and Cromer crab. “Nope,” I said smugly. “I’ve got a bag.”

And so I had — a shopper from Longchamp, which is less eco-chic than the cream canvas one, but does the job. Mind you, it’s not that long ago when I was barred from carrying my shopping from M&S without one of their carriers, as security might think I’d been shoplifting.

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Every person in the UK gets through about 167 plastic bags a year, 10 billion all together

Anna Shepard, Eco-worrier

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This week The Grocer magazine reported that shop assistants pack an average of three items into each plastic bag in supermarkets.

But let’s not pretend, shall we, that Sainsbury flogging carriers saying “I’m NOT a Plastic Bag” will actually stop us from using them. It’ll merely dent the problem, which is that Britain gets through nearly eight billion plastic bags a year. But in the Irish Republic the Government abolished plastic bag use practically overnight in 2002. It did so by obliging shops to charge customers about 10p for each bag. The exception is unpackaged fruit and veg — one way you can get a carrier is by buying loose potatoes.

It worked. People were so mean, they universally turned down the chance of buying their bags in favour of all sorts of alternatives — cardboard boxes, paper carriers (more stylish) and bags for life. A country where you used to be given a plastic carrier when you bought a bar of soap turned into a place where those bags are treasured as bin liners.

The British Government is simply exhorting supermarkets to reduce the environmental impact of their plastic bags and packaging by 25 per cent by the end of 2008. Pah. That won’t do it. Make us pay.

It’s not a slogan that would work on the front of a shopper, but it’s the only language we understand.

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