A community garden in Southwark received £12,000 from Tesco Bags of Help in order to make much needed renovations to the space.
The garden is situated in Southwark Park in front of gallery.
CGP London is an artist-led gallery and a registered charity that aims to bring free, contemporary art exhibits to the community and create a space for artists and curators develop their ideas.
The £12,000 went to provide CGP London’s garden with accessible, mixed height plant beds, safer floor tiling, and outdoor lighting to replace electrics that had become waterlogged.
New plants were also purchased for the garden including plum trees and seasonal vegetables.
The extra charge on plastic bags was imposed by the UK government in 2015 due to concerns about pollution and single-use plastics.
In 2014, before plastic carrier bags cost 5p, major supermarkets in England gave over 7.6 billion single-use plastic bags to consumers, which is the equivalent of 61,000 tonnes of plastic.
The plastic bag charge applies to all large supermarkets – those with over 250 employees – and it has been regarded as a huge success, with the number of bags used down by 80%.
Tesco has taken this a step further though, and the supermarket has replaced all of the single-use carrier bags with a “Bag for Life,” which is a heavy-duty bag made from recycled plastics.
Although the Bag for Life costs 10p, if the bag wears out or becomes damaged, customers can bring it to a Tesco and have it replaced for free.
Money raised from Tesco’s bag charges go to the charity Groundwork, which handles the distribution of the funds to community projects, such as the garden in front of CGP London.