It’s in the bag for Karl Tatler, who runs his lettings and sales business on the Wirral.

He has enterprisingly marked this week’s bid to control the environmental damage of plastic shopping bags by producing his agency’s own Bag For Life. 

With 8.5 billion free plastic bags used by British supermarket shoppers in 2014, many larger stores now charge at least 5p for each plastic bag – a prompt for Tatler to combine canny marketing with eco-consciousness.

Available in all of his seven branches across Wirral the 100 per cent recyclable, 100 per cent reusable bags feature photography of local landmarks and landscapes.

“On the Wirral we are incredibly fortunate to have such magnificent countryside, estuaries, parks, architecture and of course, wildlife. To be able to do our part in helping protect our beautiful landscape is important to us. We hope that by offering our free bags for life to anyone coming into our branches, we can make it easier for shoppers to use less plastic and in turn help protect Wirral” says Tatler.

There was an extra eco-benefit too – the Bags For Life were manufactured by a family-run business with over 10 years’ experience and high levels of ethical and quality standards.