Bag It Up + Reuse

As part of our Bag It Up + Reuse! project, we’re giving away free reusable bags across north London. You can then pledge to use it and you'll be entered into a prize draw! Find out more and help waste less, and save more money too.

How it works

After the government introduced the 5p plastic bag charge for large shops and supermarkets, we wanted find a way to help customers of smaller shops reuse their bags. So for a third time, we’ve teamed up with 21 north London shops and provided them with around 100 reusable bags each, to offer to their customers for free.
Once you’ve picked up one of our reusable bags, you also have the chance to win a copy of our North London Food Lovers’ Cookbook, which is full of recipes which help to use up commonly leftover ingredients. All you have to do to enter is put your details into the form on our Bag It Up pledge page.

Why is bag reuse important?

Plastic bags are a big environmental problem. They take a long time to degrade, can damage wildlife and often end up littering our streets and parks. The government 5p levy on single use plastic bags has dramatically helped reduce the number of plastic bags in circulation with the seven biggest supermarkets reporting a reduction of more than 85% in the first six active months. This is great news, however as the charge does not affect small retailers there is more work that can be done to encourage customers of these stores to switch to using reusable bags. The businesses themselves will also be able to save money by not having to purchase plastic bags.

Read more here.