The Tesco systen works well - if you want it to.
Take bags and get points on your Clubcard.
We have a set of plastic boxes in the boot - shopping goes from trolley to box and then is easily taken indoors.
We also have bags, and as someone pointed out - it's the easiest thing to sew (yes sew) a couple from an item you were going to throw out.

Janet Wood, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria

What is the benefit of a paper bag ? Does it not come from wood ? Does wood not come from trees ? Does a tree not represent a positive thing for the environment ?
What is the evidence that paper bags are more benign than plastic ?
What are the enviromental costs of manufacturing canvas bags ? (no doubt made in third world countries with slave labour and transported across the globe by plane!)
What about the environmental costs of washing out bins regularly with DETERGENT and swilling it into the drains?
The truth is out there somewhere and most people will start hoarding plastic bags because these fools are intent on banning them.

David Nammory, Liverpool,

There is one major thing those who claim the state shouldn't meddle in our lives do not understand.
We only deserve our liberty if we are prepared to take responsibility for our actions.
In Britain it is all about what people want/don't want and yet you have a very dysfunctional society, the only concern is wealth.
Adults and HENCE their offspring seem to have little control over their behaviour, the concept of restraint does not exist.
I am happy to be taxed on my plastic bag usage and surveys can be made to tell any story (we have seen this with the third LHR runway). If I don't want such a tax levied on me I have the intelligence to use canvas bags for my shopping. Ed's argument about bin liners is fallacious, I do what they used to do and put what cannot be recycled/composted straight into the bin. And yes I do have to go through the trouble of washing my bin out from time to time. Would you rather a little organic whiff or be surrepticiously poisened by all the chemicals?

Esther Phillips, Leatherhead,

What am I going to line my small bins in my house with if plastic bags are disappearing? I find them essential for waste disposal. In my eyes this is a government and big business ploy to pretend they are doing something about the environment without making any big sacrifices.

Ed, London, UK

Brown paper bags are no longer in use in supermarkets in the Sates . Why? - simply because they are proven far worse to the environment that lightweight plastic supermarket bags which are reuseable, recyclable and are reused as a last resort by most households as bin liners. M & S shareholders will gain a minimum of £6.5 million every year as a result of this cynical commercial charging gesture, with only £1 million of YOUR money going to charity when they collect over £6 million from the five pences charged. Nice work if you can get it - but not from me pal.

Neil Young, Glasgow,

Use up your old curtains and fabric scraps, stored away and never used. It took two hours to sew up fifteen cotton bags which will last me for life.
When I produce them at the checkout it does cause a stir. Why? Perhaps people no longer use sewing machines.
Nikki

Nikki, Hull, East Yorkshire

It has been bruited around that plastic bags will not break down for 1000 years. Surely this equivalent to taking carbon out of circulation - supposedly a good THING. I wish people would get this CO2 thing sorted out. Too many people are making contradictory claims and doing no more than confusing the issue.

Incidentally we have been using a large polypropylene shopping bag long before the recent campaign; and using a minimum of plastic bags.

M. Cawdery, Portadown, UK ( if it still exists)

When I realised that I was accumulating more plastic bags than I really wanted to, I sat down for two hours at my sewing machine and ran up fifteen strong cotton carriers from old curtains and odd bits of fabric stashed away.
I shall use these for the rest of my life, and keep some in the car for times when I forget to take them from the house with me.
What is the problem for everyone else? Can't do straight stitch on a sewing machine anymore? <<snicker snicker>>

Nikki, Hull, East Yorkshire

This is important research which discredits the politicians sultion to impose a tax on anything that they can. The retailers have already reduced impacts of carrier bags and continue to do so through their voluntary code. On paper bags, even the most superficial reserach will show that paper has far greater environmental impacts across a full life cycle than plastic - more pollution in manufacture, more energy and fuel in transportation and the potential to degrade to give of greenhouse gases in landfill which plastic doesn't have. Let's stop demonising plastic and start demonising the irresponsible people who throw litter and can't be bothered to recycle.

Peter, Nottingham,

Or if you have to use plastic bags, why not ones which are compostable! I think food retails need to drastically reduce the amount of packaging they use to package their food, it is ridiculous to wrap cucumbers in plastic, and to put 4 plums on a polystrene tray and wrap it in plastic!
We need to promote the 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Dawn, London,

Ever tried carrying brown bags when it's raining and they get sodden?

John, Knutsford, UK

It is all very well for M&S to charge for plastic bags but if you buy any food, especially sandwiches or ready meals, from M&S the amount of packaging involved cancels out any benefit in not having a plastic bag. Why not brown paper bags like they have in the States, which can be recycled.

Pete, Barry, Wales