Plastic carrier bags were nowhere to be seen as shoppers left a Tesco store in Sligo yesterday and the 15 cent bag levy appeared to be a total success. People either had long-life bags and or had brought reusable bags.
Checkout operator Ursula Lyons said more than 70 per cent of people had their own bags. Hardly anyone was paying the 15 cent plastic levy. There were very few complaints, she said.
Leonie Coyle said she had been bringing her own bags for years. In other countries she had "seen how people were so much more environment-conscious there".
Helen Burke from Grange had got used to bringing her own bags and agreed with the levy. "You can get used to living without them," she said.
Her family runs a small shop/pub in the village and had stopped supplying plastic bags due to the extra administration work.
In Penneys, newly-introduced paper bags were being given to customers. Department manager Lisa McDaid said plastic bags were only being given out if people asked for them. "Nobody is asking for them and some people have brought their own bags," she said.
At the House of Value in Sligo, shop assistant Marie MacSharry said 95 per cent of customers had their own bags.
Anna Regan has worked in O'Hehir's bakery shop, under five different owners, for 54 years. She remembers when bread was wrapped in tissue paper and customers put it in their own shopping bags. She thought the tax was "right because it will get rid of a lot of the rubbish that's around".