I know we have to pay a 5p charge for carrier bags.
Today I shopped for childrens clothes in Next the well know store, using my own bag..looking at my receipt I see I have been charged 5p for "Income Carrier Bag"
Sounds like a bleeding cheek to me. They charge you for giving you one of their bags and also charge you for bringing your own in? Rip-off springs to mind.
I suspect it simply means that the cashier is so used to pressing the key to add on the cost of a carrier bag that he/she did it automatically, even though you'd brought your own bag.
So you've donated 4.17p to charity and 0.83p towards paying off the National Debt (because the 5p charge includes VAT).
It's the system in the store that is ultimately at fault here. I do understand the point made about the assistant automatically and without thinking, pressing a key to activate the charge. However, in most stores I shop in, the carrier bears a barcode that has to be scanned in the same way as the items purchased to add the charge to the receipt. Aldi cannot manually input the charge on the POS terminal - the carrier has to be scanned.
I can't argue against the charge. It's entirely for the environment (I don't really care about the charities). The only bit about bag charges that annoys me is for clothes. i think you should get given those in a new store bag.