Carrier Bag Shop, Carrier Bags & The Environment...

We are in an age where packaging, especially carrier bags are increasingly shown to be a major cause of waste and pollution. At Carrier Bag Shop we have taken it upon ourselves to become an innovator in providing environmentally friendly packaging solutions. When you buy packaging from us, you can rest assured in the knowledge that we try our best to work with the environment not against it, and will offer you the best eco-solutions available. If you have any secific questions about the enviroinmental impact of your packaging or about our products, then please do not hesitate to get in touch and our Team will be happy to help you with any information that you need!

Our "Bags To Trees" Campaign.

The debate about which material is better for the environment has always drawn much disagreement from both sides. We make no bones about preferring recycled paper packaging and bags over plastic bags though. As well as the pollution caused in the extrusion of plastic film, it is not bio-degradable. Although many companies will now try and sell "degradable polythene", the question has to be asked, how much light will the polythene really get in a land fill site... There area wide range of recycled papers out in the market, from as little as 10% recycled content up to 100% recycled content. Paper can be either post0consumer (i.e. from your recycling bins) or pre-consumer (i.e. the waste around at teh factories).

We have set up our Bags to Trees initiative, donating money to various foundations depending on how many paper bags that we sell. The more we sell, the more money we will donate to selected tree foundations to help plant trees to replace the ones that have been used in the manufacture of the bags! We like to call it being environmentally friendly retrospectively.

Look through our online shop and be sure to check out all products with the Tree Aid and Tree Council graphic next to them. With the great fluctuations in pricing on raw materials, products and currency fluctuations, we are no longer able to put a value on the amount that we will donate, however will will make it our aim to make sure it is no lower that 0.5% of the sale price of the products.

The Tree Council - Working Together For Trees

The Tree Council promotes the planting and conservation of trees in town and countryside. The lead UK tree campaigning partnership, it is an umbrella body for 150 organisations working together for trees. It is also a forum for tackling issues relating to trees and woods.

The Tree Council depends principally on donations, legacies and sponsorship. To find out more visit www.treecouncil.org.uk.

"Our goal is to make trees matter to everyone, as well as to get more trees, of the right kind and in the right places. We are therefore very grateful to Carrier Bag Shop for supporting our work. We want to help more people appreciate the many values of trees - and one of these is as a sustainable source of raw material for packaging."

Pauline Buchanan-Black, Director General, The Tree Council

TREE AID - Supporting the Planting of trees in Africa

In rural Africa, trees feed, house, provide energy and improve the environment for millions of families. But rapid deforestation in the drylands of Africa is depriving people of these essential resources.
TREE AID works village by village to support communities to meet their basic needs and secure vital income from trees. We do this through training for and funding of community forestry projects.

"Tree Aid are very happy to receive the donations of Carrier Bag Shop. Together we can make a difference to the lives of many villages in rural Africa, helping to develop self reliant communities."

Miranda Spitteler, Chief Executive, Tree Aid

Our Environmental Policy.

When you buy from Carrier Bag Shop, you can rest assured that the products you buy, to the best of our knowledge, we aim to do the following:

Comply with all relevant environmental laws, regulations and standards.
Ensure that all of our waste is disposed of in a safe and responsible way.
Promote awareness amongst our staff of the environmental initiatives we are involved in and how they can contribute.
Endeavour to source all of our products from organisations who work towards minimising their environmental impact.
Review our environmental policy on an annual basis taking in to consideration developments in industry & government legislation and social expectations & requirements.
Set and monitor key objectives and targets of our environmental performance.
Encourage our staff to consider the impact on the environment of activities relating to business operations.

In order to acheive these goals, we will:

Include relevant environmental information with our products online and offline to create awareness to our clients.
Try and provide our staff with the relevant support to reduce their environmental impact.
Continuously asses our processes and actions to reduce the environmental impact.
Establish annual targets that will help us achieve our environmental performance.
Ensure that our suppliers have full credentials to support the low carbon impact of their manufacturing, delivery and operational processes.
Promote and encourage our suppliers to introduce policies around reducing their environmental impact.

Spread the "Bags to Trees" message.

As part of our charity drive, for all our customers ordering printed packaging, we also have a special logo as you can see on the right hand side. Carrier Bag Shop will add £5.00 to our charity pot for distribution to our charities. This offer is extended to plastic as well as paper bags.

All you have to do is carry the logo on your bgs to qualify for this discount, its as easy as that. By helping the environment you are doing sommething great, and make sure that people know about it!

Thank you for supporting Carrier Bag Shop, Tree Aid and The Tree Council and our other charitable and environmental projects.