Tesco UK has announced plans to continue its 'Bags of Help' project-funding scheme, working with environmental charity Groundwork, on a monthly basis from 1 December. Until now, the plastic-bag-levy scheme ran every nine months, supporting thousands of community projects, with grants of up to £5,000.
The continuous scheme is expected to benefit more than 7,000 projects every year. Tesco customers will continue to vote for their favourite projects with blue tokens given out at the till.
"Over the last year, the money raised by customers, buying single-use carrier bags, has resulted in £24 million being awarded to over 2,400 local community projects (..), ranging from outdoor classrooms, sports facilities, community gardens, play areas and everything in-between," Matt Davies, CEO of Tesco UK, said.
Groundwork’s UK chief executive, Graham Duxbury, commented: "The money raised by Tesco customers, through Bags of Help, has already made a massive difference in communities. Now that the scheme will be permanently open for applications, we expect even more communities to benefit from fantastic projects that create, or provide access to better, healthier and greener places."
In October, Tesco UK reported that the 5p levy on single-use plastic carrier bags, introduced by the British government over a year ago, had saved 1.5 billion plastic bags so far, representing a 72% drop in the use of single-use plastic bags in Tesco stores compared to previous years.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Martha Sparrius. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
