Plastic bag free survey as statistics

Summary of our December 2008 survey (see the numerical answers in the entry below/ 4 January 2009). Here you can read the survey results as statistics.

• Most shoppers (81 per cent) at Highbury Barn would like the shops at Highbury Barn to stop giving out plastic bags for free.

Question 1 More than 100 towns in Britain have banned plastic bags - do you think that Highbury Barn should?
A) yes 81%
B) no10%
C) not really 3%
D) not ban but strongly discourage 5%
E) doesn’t really matter/not sure 2%

Question 2Do you use a re-usable bag when shopping?
A) yes 61%
B) No 8%
C) sometimes/usually19%
D) try to remember but forget 12%
E) not sure1%

Question 3 How much would you be willing to pay for a biodegradeable bag (eg, corn starch)? Answers between 6p - 15p.
A) 6p - 10p 34%
B) 10p 20%
C) 10p - 15p 28%
D) 15p 10%
E) 20p 2%
F) want them to be free 5%

Question 4 And how much would you be willing to pay for a re usable bag (eg, cloth)? Answers between 50p - £2.00.
A) 50p 9%
B) 50p - £1.00 25%
C) £1 -40%
D) £1.00 - £2.00 16%
E) £2.00 5%
F) want them to be free 3%
G) wouldn’t pay 1%
H) don’t know 1%

NEWINGTON GREEN COMPARISONS
During 2008 Newington Green was the first Islington borough to go plastic bag free. Their plastic bag free group, co-ordinated by Orlando Jopling, also did a survey (in spring 2008) which you can see on their blog here. We have compared the results (where the questions allowed us to).

The Newington Green blog has six relevant statistics that allow comparison.

Some are straightforward:
94% shoppers in Newington Green would support a ban on free plastic bags
81 % shoppers in Highbury Barn would support a ban on shops giving out free plastic bags.

Very few shoppers in Newington Green are prepared to pay £1 for a reusable bag.
Shoppers in Highbury Barn were more precise. A quarter (25 per cent) said that, for cloth bags the'd pay up to £1. Nearly half (40 per cent) said they'd pay around £1. And 16 per cent said they'd pay between £1-2. 16%. Highbury Barn shoppers seem much more willing than Newington Green shoppers to pay for reusable bags.

The other comparisons are more complex.

More than half (66 per cent) of Newington Green shoppers said they were prepared to pay for a bag. We didn’t put the question in that way to Highbury Barn shoppers. We broke the question down into types of bag. At Highbury Barn 94% said they were prepared to pay for a biodegradable bag. Even more (95%) said they were prepared to pay for a reusable bag.

Newington Green got the result that more than half (52%) would pay up to 5p for a reusable bag. But at Highbury Barn we asked the question: "How much would you be willing to pay for a biodegradeable bag (eg, corn starch)?" We found that: 34% said 6p-10p (the 6p-10p category is the nearest category our survey had to Newington Green's 5p choice) with the bulk of respondents happy to pay more than 6p.)

The survey statistics were pulled together by Plastic Bag Free Highbury Barn group member Neil Devlin.