Spotlight of shame: Sainsbury's

In October 2008, Saiunsbury's removed carrier bags from display at their checkouts. Sadly, they weren't planning to scrunch them up into a giant ball to jam into Jamie Oliver's mouth to shut him up. Thus far, they've committed to keeping the bags free, and to give them out willingly if customers ask for them. No doubt plenty of people are using their bag-for-life to carry home various plastic bin bags, which is obviously reducing the amount of plastic waste enourmously.

Since this change in policy, something else appears to have happened, though. Something dark and disturbing and not entirely unexpected. The free bags now seem to fall apart with alarming ease. Items previously swallowed without so much as a rustle, things like small packets of herbs, and water biscuits, now tear vast holes in the side of the bags. We shall see if we can get to the bottom of this.