Why so many bags for online groceries?

LIKE many people who live a long way from a supermarket, I’m a fan of online grocery delivery. It’s convenient, quick and seems like a greener option as it saves me using petrol on the 20-mile supermarket round-trip.

But the large number of plastic carrier bags used to deliver each shop is ludicrous.

Chilled and frozen goods are bagged separately, loose vegetables get a bag of their own, shower gel can sometimes be wrapped in several bags — and chicken, despite being sealed, often gets a separate bag.

From October 5, supermarkets will charge for bags used in online deliveries. Most plan to introduce a flat fee regardless of how many are used, rather than charge per bag. To see how efficient supermarkets are in their use of bags with online deliveries, I ordered from Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Ocado. Morrisons does not deliver in my area.

I ordered a typical weekly family shop from each supermarket: it included a selection of loose vegetables, fruit and salads; sugar and flour; meat, bread, eggs and dairy products; washing and cleaning materials; and a few other bits and pieces.

Packing up the lot myself, I used no more than five bags — and that still left plenty of room in most of them. But the supermarkets were infinitely more profligate: Tesco was the worst, using 13 bags. Its online operation will charge a flat rate of 40p from October 5. Waitrose used eight, and is also expected to charge a flat rate of 40p; Ocado used seven, and has yet to fix its rate; Sainsbury’s used seven, too, and will charge 40p; Asda used a modest six and will charge 30p.

Despite the new charges, online shopping will remain a serious source of pollution unless the supermarkets change their ‘bagging-up’ policies. For although my experiment was hardly scientific, it shows they are still being far too cavalier with plastic bags.