THE Marks & Spencer store at The Mall at Cribbs Causeway has begun charging for carrier bags.

The store is one of 35 M&S branches across the South West taking part in the first phase of a two-part trial, aimed at encouraging customers to significantly reduce the number of carrier bags they use.

Customers are receiving a free M&S "Bag for Life" (usual cost 10p) with every food transaction until Sunday, February 3, when a 5p charge will be introduced for standard food carrier bags. The Bag for Life will revert to its usual 10p cost and will be replaced free of charge when worn out.

All profits raised from the sale of the standard food carrier bags will be donated to the charity Groundwork UK and invested in local environmental regeneration projects.

Sarah Miller, M&S general manager in the South West, said: "Since we announced our intention to trial charging for carriers in the region, feedback has been very positive with customers telling us that they are ready to break the habit of using too many bags.

"We hope that the trial will encourage us all to think about the number of carrier bags we are using and make the effort to reduce, reuse and recycle whenever we can.

"This is why we are starting by giving all of our customers a free Bag for Life over the next four weeks."

The South West trial follows a successful period of charging 5p per bag in the firm's Northern Ireland stores which, in the first 16 weeks, saw a 66 per cent reduction in the number of carriers used, with three quarters of M&S customers choosing to use an alternative to the standard M&S food carrier bag each time they shopped.

In the same time period, the trial raised more than £40,000 for Groundwork Northern Ireland.

M&S stores in the South West are also the first in the country to trial using standard food carrier bags made from 100 per cent recycled post consumer waste.

Both trials are part of the company's £200 million "eco-plan" to reduce carrier bag usage by a third and send no waste to landfill by 2012.