{"id":37384,"date":"2022-08-12T09:43:55","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T09:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/?p=37384"},"modified":"2022-08-12T12:31:51","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T12:31:51","slug":"co-op-donates-to-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/2022\/08\/12\/co-op-donates-to-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent Co-op franchises donated \u00a31.8m from plastic-bags to charities in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- VideographyWP Plugin Message: Automatic video embedding prevented by plugin options. --><br \/>\nIndependent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nisalocally.co.uk\/retailers\/co-op-franchise\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Co-op franchises<\/a> donated \u00a31.8 million to charities from in-store plastic-bag charges in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The funds &#8211; made purely from sales of plastic bags &#8211; have more than doubled on a two-year basis, highlighting the demand for local convenience.<\/p>\n<p>Figures for 2021 were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/carrier-bag-charge-summary-of-data-in-england\/single-use-plastic-carrier-bags-charge-data-for-england-2020-to-2021\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">released this month<\/a> by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), revealing that independent Co-op franchises donated \u00a31.8 million in plastic-bag charges to charities, up from nearly \u00a3700,000 in 2019.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/2022\/08\/08\/southern-co-op-ocado-bbq\/\">Ocado and Southern Co-op remove disposable BBQs from sale<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>During the same two-year period, donations from the Co-op multiple chain rose from \u00a35.3 million to \u00a310.1 million.<\/p>\n<p>In comparison, contributions from major supermarket chains increased from \u00a310 million to \u00a311 million.<\/p>\n<p>Defra stressed that any comparison of 2021 to the previous year would be inaccurate due to the disruption caused by the\u00a0pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe increase is an indication of the pandemic trend where more people started shopping at their local convenience store,\u201d said retail expert, David Gilroy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey weren\u2019t driving to get their\u00a0groceries\u00a0and many of them were just walking into the shop to pick up their goods, while demand at supermarkets also changed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cOverall, the usage of plastic bags has decreased since the charge was introduced in 2015, which is a positive move for the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The news comes as Co-op has announced it will be expanding its partnership with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/spring.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tech-recirculation service<\/a> Spring, in a bid to help its customers cut e-waste.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/subscribe-to-newsletter\/\" data-ol-has-click-handler=\"\">Click here to sign up to Grocery Gazette\u2019s free daily email newsletter<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Independent Co-op franchises donated \u00a31.8million to charities from in-store plastic-bag charges in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":37387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3930,1,3931],"tags":[4774,328,4175,10266,816,10265,83],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37384"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37407,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37384\/revisions\/37407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grocerygazette.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}