Ten years of the carrier bag charge: what it changed

It's easy to forget how normal it was to leave a supermarket with eight thin plastic bags and throw most of them away by the weekend. The charge didn't ban anything. It just made people stop for a second at the till, and that second was enough.

More than ten years on, the habits it created are everywhere. The bag folded in a coat pocket. The three in the car boot. The bag of bags under the kitchen sink. The cashier's "do you need a bag?" is now so routine that saying yes feels like a small admission of failure.

For us, the change showed up in a different way. A printed cotton bag used to be something you got at a conference. Now it's something people expect to be handed by a bookshop, a farm shop or a festival, and something shops sell at the till. The reusable bag stopped being a gesture and became ordinary.

Here's the part we'd be dishonest to skip. A cotton bag is not automatically better for the planet than the plastic bag it replaced.

The Environment Agency's 2011 study worked out how many times each type of bag needs to be used to match the climate impact of a single-use plastic carrier used once. A paper bag needs 3 uses. A thick plastic bag for life needs 4. A woven polypropylene bag needs 11. A cotton bag needs 131, and that rises to 327 if the plastic bag would have been reused as a bin liner.

The Danish Environmental Protection Agency went further in 2018 and looked at every kind of environmental impact, not just climate. On that measure, a conventional cotton bag needs about 7,100 uses.

Cotton takes a lot of land, water and energy to grow and weave, so its case rests entirely on being used again and again. A cotton bag used a handful of times and then forgotten in a cupboard is worse than the plastic bag it was meant to replace. That's uncomfortable to write on a website that prints cotton bags, but it's true, and it shapes the advice we give.

If the whole point is reuse, then the job of anyone ordering printed bags is to order bags people keep. From the print works, that comes down to a few plain things.

• It's big enough for a real shop. A 38 x 42 cm bag takes a decent load of groceries. A tiny bag gets used for a tiny job, once.
• It has long handles. A bag that goes over the shoulder gets carried; a bag you have to hold in your hand gets left behind.
• It's sturdy enough to last. A heavier canvas, around 270 to 280gsm, keeps its shape and survives years of shopping. Our guide to gsm explains the weights.
• The design is something people like. A giant logo is an advert; a good drawing, a bit of wit or a local landmark is a bag. People reuse bags they like being seen with.
• It isn't one of thirty. A bag handed to everyone who walks past ends up in the bag of bags. A bag given with a bit of thought ends up on someone's shoulder.

Recycled cotton helps too, because it reuses fibre that has already been grown. Most of our recycled bags are made from GRS-certified recycled cotton, and the are tote bags sustainable? guide covers the wider picture.

Ten years in, customers expect to be asked whether they need a bag, and plenty expect to pay for one. That's an opportunity as much as a rule. A well-made printed bag sold at the till, rather than a flimsy one given away, is a bag your customers will carry round town with your name on it for years.

For boutiques and gift shops, a good paper bag still has a place: it feels like part of the purchase. We print logo paper bags in several styles, quoted by hand. Our pages on retail shopping bags and printed carrier bags go through the options.

The rules on charging aren't the same everywhere. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have their own carrier bag charge, so check the current rules for your nation before you set a price at the till. The official guidance for England is on gov.uk, and our carrier bag charge guide explains the basics.