Tesco defends carrier bag reduction figures

The Times today said Britain’s largest retailer was publishing “misleading” carrier bag reductions by adjusting figures to account for the growth of the business.

The newspaper cited an unnamed senior source at Tesco who said “actual reduction had been significantly less than 50% but the company was concerned about negative publicity”.

But a Tesco spokeswoman told Packaging News the multiple’s position on carrier bag reduction had not changed. “We are a growing business and look at the performance of the average store. More customers now shop with Tesco than did in 2006, and on average each is using 50% fewer bags than they did then. This is the most meaningful number,” she said.

The spokeswoman added customers had to take the credit for carrier bag reduction “You have to encourage customers to change their behaviour, and families that are shopping with us are using less bags.”

The Carrier Bag Consortium defended Tesco and other supermarkets’ activities in reducing the environmental impact of carrier bags and said the story fell into the trap of saying the only measure was the number of bags used.

“We’ve always said the methodology shouldn’t just look at numbers but a range of factors such as weight, reuse and recycled content which is what the retailers have been doing,” a spokesman said.

The Times story comes a day after Tesco revealed it had stopped sending waste to landfill, a year ahead of target.

Yesterday the retailer revealed its 2,315 stores, distribution centres and offices were using recycling and energy recovery to avoid sending waste food and packaging to landfill.

It is using a range of methods such as anaerobic digestion and mechanical biological waste treatment, and working with the local authorities schemes where possible.

“We’re delighted to achieve this milestone. And the exciting thing is that it’s an area that’s still growing and technologies are being developed.”

Last month, Wrap revealed supermarkets involved in a voluntary scheme had reduced the amount of bags they give out by 48% between May 2006 and May 2009. For more on supermarkets’ work on reducing carrier bags, click here.