Help the Aged ban carrier bags to link green and grey issues

In a bid to highlight their role as a recycling centre, Help the Aged will be banning plastic bags from its high-street shops from June this year.

The charity is following in the footsteps of Marks and Spencers, who will be charging customers for plastic carrier bags starting in May.

Until the ban comes into force, charity shops will be giving out reused bags and cardboard boxes to customers. Bosses at the charity are still working out what to do after the ban.

Help the Aged shops currently recycle over 14 million second-hand goods every year, through reselling goods and through giving unsold clothes to people in the majority world. They are considering supplementing the ban by using recyclable materials for their collection bags, used to collect unwanted goods across the UK. The collection bags are currently plastic.

The charity’s head of field and operations, Terry Mutton, said: “Help the Aged shops are among the best recyclers on the high street.

“Our 365 shops have provided customers with 2 million carrier bags each year and almost all of these will end up in landfill sites, so phasing them out is a big step in protecting the environment.”

Help the Aged has recently been highlighting the link between “green and grey” political issues.

A recent report by the charity, Towards Common Ground: climate change and an ageing population, contends that many policies that would tackle climate change, such as public transport, will benefit older people.

Help the Aged’s policy manager, Anna Pearson, said: “Climate change and growing older are now two certainties facing all of us.

“For Government, these twin agendas pose both a threat, but also a very real opportunity.”