Shoppers get carried away

YOU'D have thought Sainsbury's had won the exclusive rights to sell the new Harry Potter.

Thousands of people got up at the crack of dawn to queue outside the supermarket chain's 450 stores nationwide for the latest must-have buy.

But no. It wasn't the adventures of Harry and his gang they were after. It was a carrier bag.

This was no ordinary carrier bag, however. It was a limited edition, reusable, environmentally-friendly canvas bag by exclusive accessories designer Anya Hindmarch, proudly bearing the slogan: "I'm NOT a plastic bag"

The scramble to get hold of one of these desirable items - they retailed at only £5 each, compared with the £500 you'd normally expect to pay for a Hindmarch bag - was extraordinary.

Across the country, customers queued through the night to get their hands on one. In York, Becky Cheeseman, who turned up at Sainsbury's at Monks Cross at 7.45am, found they had already all sold out.

Nationwide, the very last bag had reputedly been snapped up by 9am.

So, does this hunger to get hold of an environmentally-friendly, reusable bag show that we've all suddenly gone green overnight?

And does it mean the plastic supermarket bag is finally going to become a thing of the past?

It would be nice to think so. Plastic bags are pretty horrible, let's face it.

Between us, we Britons are reckoned to get through something like ten billion of the things every year. Ten billion.

That is shameful. They are made out of non-renewable fossil fuels that could have been used for something else (or better still left alone), and they never decompose.

No wonder they are everywhere around us: flying like dirty flags from trees lining the River Ouse; blowing like tumbleweed down the streets; clogging up landfill sites.

If we have suddenly seen the error of our ways and all decided to start using reusable bags instead, how great that would be.

Sadly, the Sainsbury's green bag phenomenon is probably not about us all suddenly becoming green.

"I would like to think that it did mean that," said Anne McCrickard, boss of York's new eco-fashion boutique, One.

"But I'm a little bit cynical."

She's probably right to be. Within hours of selling out at Sainsbury's, the £5 bags were being offered on eBay for up to £200.

There were also unconfirmed suggestions that at some Sainsbury's stores, assistants had been seen putting the Hindmarch bags in plastic ones for shoppers to carry away.

No green phenomenon this, then, but consumers falling over themselves to bag a designer accessory at a bargain basement price - possibly with the intention of making a fat profit out of it later.

It isn't all bad news, however. Anne, who specialises in high-end fashion made from natural organic and fair trade materials, points out that the lust for the Hindmarch bags at least proves that green design is now cool and fashionable.

Natasha Francis, owner of York eco-boutique Everything But Beige, agrees.

The rush to buy the Hindmarch bags was probably more about wanting to be seen with THE accessory of the moment, rather than a sign of your green credentials, she says.

But on balance she thinks Sainsbury's have done a good thing.

"It is not going to suddenly put an end to plastic shopping bags," she said.

"It is good, but it (the hunger for green fashions and accessories) has become a trend which will pass. It will wear off. People are fickle.

"But it doesn't do any harm, and at least there are more people who are aware."

And at least if those who bought the bags use them when they do their weekly shopping, that will be 20,000 people who don't need to use plastic bags, says Mandy Geary, manager of Tullivers health food shop in Colliergate.

Tullivers have long been trying to encourage customers not to use plastic bags.

If asked, they will give them out. But they also offer paper bags as an alternative, and sell green, eco-friendly reusable bags of their own.

One is a large, hard-wearing jute bag that sells for £2, and will decompose once you have finished with it.

The other is the shop's popular turtle bag - a 100 per cent cotton bag in rich pastel colours that sells for £4.49 and can be used again and again.

It gets its name from the leatherback turtle, Mandy explained.

These feed on jellyfish. And the trouble is that plastic bags, when they get into the sea, can look like jellyfish. Turtles try to eat them and choke to death.

The turtle bags are to replace plastic bags, in other words - to help save turtles, and to raise awareness more generally about environmental issues.

The real solution, however, may be for the Government and supermarkets to work together to reduce our reliance on plastic.

Some countries put a tax on plastic bags, points out Anne McCrickard.

Some supermarkets - such as Aldi and Netto - only give them out if customers pay for them.

That's a great way of encouraging us to bring our own bags. Designer or not.

Bag lady Becky misses out...

BECKY Cheeseman was one of the hopefuls who flocked to Sainsbury's on Wednesday morning.

The graphic artist has a passion for bags of every shape, size and colour.

Unfortunately, arriving at 7.45am, she was already too late.

"Apparently, there were people queuing at 4am for one," she said.

"The security guards gave them vouchers so they could get one when they came back at 7am.

"Each store only got 30 and there were none left when I got there."

Becky, 27, admits she was drawn to the design, but liked the idea of helping the environment.

On average, Becky's family goes through about ten to 12 carrier bags each week.

That's just on the weekly shop - visits to clothes stores accumulate more.

Generally they re-use them, doubling them as bin liners, putting lunch in them and giving them out at car boot sales.

But supermarkets should do more to help, Becky believes.

Sainsbury's were on the right track with the Anya Hindmarsh design; they were attractive, strong and you knew you were being green.

The next step should be mass reductions of the packaging supermarkets use, she said.

"We buy these little chocolate bars and every one is individually wrapped, then they're on a tray, then the whole thing is wrapped up.

"Why do they need to be on a tray? It's very wasteful."

Recently, her family has started recycling materials such as plastic and glass.

Their recycling box fills very quickly, and it has highlighted how much packaging there is.

Ethics girls just love these bags

Lifestyle editor Maxine Gordon explains the allure of the bag

IN the ab fab, fickle world of fashion, few things matter more than getting your hands on the latest must-have item.

Next week it will the Kate Moss collection (on sale at Topshop from Tuesday), but this week it was the Anya Hindmarch canvas shopper that had the fashionistas queuing round the block at Sainsburys across the UK from the wee small hours.

Bearing the slogan "I'm NOT a plastic bag", its fashion status was secured when it was given out as the goodie bag at this year's Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

Created by top accessories designer Hindmarch (whose bags normally sell for £500), the eco-bag was a snip at a fiver.

But with many now flooding internet auction sites and attracting bids of up to £200, you've got to conclude that saving the planet isn't the first thing on the minds of many of these bag buyers.

Eco retailing is big business. According to figures from the Co-op bank, we spent almost £30 billion on ethical consumer goods in 2005 - more than on alcohol and tobacco.

In Saturday's The Press, I reported on how fashion stores in York are selling an increasing number of environmentally-friendly goods, from organic cotton T-shirts to fairly-traded shoes.

For this trend to continue, green goods must also be gorgeous ones - for the first rule of fashion is surely desire.

Bags are a fine example of this. The average women will spend £4,000 on bags in her lifetime, so it's a clever move from retailers to marry that love affair with our increasing concerns about global warning.

I have my own collection of re-useable bags, collected over recent years, and taken with me on most shopping trips.

My favourite is a large shopper from Sainsbury's featuring a black and white print by British Artist Paul Morrison. Close behind is a purple psychedelic-printed "magazine" bag from Topshop and geometric-printed bag from Miss Selfridge.

Carrying your own bags might seem a bit old fashioned (my granny never went anywhere without her shopping bag), but if retailers give out re-useable bags that are also objects of desire, we might start make a dent in the ten billion plastic bags we Brits use every year.