I have been taking my backpack with me when i go shopping since the charge, but before i'd never of really thought about taking it unless i was picking up something heavy. In Tesco the saturday, alot of people were still buying 5p bags, but in Morrisons people were buying the 10p bags for life.

tesco have put tags on there bags as people been stealing em 5p is to much for some so they Nick em that's sad

I noticed they all had bar codes on. Its quite funny really... it does make people think about how many they are using. I don't think they are worth nicking instead of paying 5p. I have seen alot of joke pictures on facebook of people just taking the baskets or trolleys instead.

The negatives to this are that, once you break past the pricing barrier, it's a can of worms opened... I guarantee that in the years to come it'll go up to 10, then 15, then 20... people will grumble about it, then get used to it, then it's as much the norm as not smoking indoors... and that's when the government will hike it up further, citing the oft-mentioned reasons of "it's clearly working but we need to do more to help the environment". Cue more grumbling without actual appropriate action, acceptance, getting used to it etc ad nauseum... also, a number of small businesses like corner shops have also started charging, even though they're not supposed to. Sheer opportunism there.

 

On the plus side, it will reduce people just plucking them and getting loads, and taking them for granted. They just tend to stock up in most people's houses and never actually get used. Or even just binned. So I suppose it's a good thing to reduce wastage.