Asda has extended its carrier bag amnesty trial at more than one-fifth of its stores after the scheme proved popular with customers.
Asda bag-free checkout
But the supermarket giant is still evaluating the results of this and several green initiatives before deciding how it can best roll them out across its entire portfolio of 336 stores.
The carrier bag amnesty scheme was initially trialled for 10 weeks from 23 April and included the provision of in-store dump bins so that customers could recycle their old plastic carrier bags.
Waste company Mil-tek provided baler compactors at 71 stores to make collection for recycling easier. Each store is processing 150-200kg of plastic bag waste a week that would otherwise have gone to landfill, Mil-tek says.
The carrier bag amnesty has continued at these stores, but been withdrawn at others where access to recycling was more difficult.
Other initiatives trialled as part of Asda's 10-week programme included free “bags for life”, bag-free checkouts and schools vouchers for customers who did not take a new bag.
A spokeswoman for Asda said the company was still evaluating feedback from its various green initiatives to assess whether it was viable to roll them out across all its stores.
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