Encouraging consumers to use fewer environmentally damaging plastic carriers has long been a challenge. If modern urban life had a flag it would be a plastic bag: ugly, somewhere unreachable and likely to remain there long after the last bit of open space has been concreted into a supermarket car park. The UK's largest supermarket chain said this month that it would seek to cut the number of carrier bags it gives to customers by 25% over the next two years.

Much more could be achieved by getting people to use their own, durable carrier bags.

Some photo printing services apply digital photos onto canvas for long lasting carrier bags. These reusable photo tote bags start are an ideal, personalised and useful present. Over the course of its long life a reusable Tote Bag helps avoiding thousands of plastic supermarket carriers when used regularly. Why carry a supermarkets logo when the carrier can feature ones favourite photograph. One of the photo services printing onto canvas, cotton and tote bags is FotoInsight of Cambridge. In light of the recent discussions about global warming, CO2 emissions and land fill photo tote bags may prove a smart, sub 12 gift idea.

Do carrier bags matter?

Every year, an estimated 17.5 billion plastic carrier bags are given away by supermarkets, an average of 290 bags for every person in the UK (Waste Watch). According to Recycle Now 80% of shoppers put everything into free carrier bags at the supermarket, using them usually only once. This results in 100,000 tonnes of plastic bags being thrown away equivalent to the weight of 70,000 mid size cars. Reusable carrier bags are a small contribution, but they certainly avoid excessive usage of fossil fuels and landfill.