Sainsbury's is launching a groundbreaking text reminder service to encourage customers to take their carrier bags with them when they go shopping, as 58% of shoppers still say the biggest barrier for not re-using bags is they forget to take them shopping and need a reminder.

Customers can now sign up to receive a weekly text reminder to take bags on their chosen day of shopping. Once a time and day is agreed, Sainsbury's will send a free weekly text reminder to customers ahead of their shopping with a prompt to take their bags.

Sainsbury's will also be removing free carrier bags from check-outs in all its stores (excluding convenience) from today. The bags will still be available but hidden from sight at the tills. Re-usable ‘Bag for Life' sales have increased by 63% in the last year and Sainsbury's anticipate a further substantial increase due to their latest plans.

Less than six months since pledging to halve the number of free one-use disposable plastic bags used by its customers by April 2009, Sainsbury's is already over half way to achieving this target. The use of free carrier bags at Sainsbury's has been slashed by 28% since April this year, achieved through a number of in-store trials.

Sainsbury's believes a number of different initiatives are required to bring about a change in consumer behaviour and is finding actions to engage customers in Reducing the number of bags they use, Re-using the bags they have and Recycling bags that are no longer fit for purpose.

Justin King, chief executive, Sainsbury's, said: " It's extremely positive that so many of our customers have reduced their use of free carrier bags in a matter of months. The results clearly show that customers respond to being rewarded and reminded for re-using their bags, and we continue to believe that charging for single-use bags is not the only answer to achieving lasting benefits for the environment.

"Instead, we want to make it easier for customers to be less reliant on free carrier bags and prompt positive behaviour change. We are over half way to reducing bag usage by 50% by April 2009, and we hope our new texting service will drive change in a practical way that helps customers change their bag usage habits."

Dr Aric Sigman, psychologist, said: "Using new carrier bags is considered a relatively ‘simple', ‘superficial' habit. Giving up a dependency on new carrier bags is not the same as giving up chocolate in that the main obstacle is to simply remember to re-use our carrier bags.

“We're not denying ourselves something that we crave, we just do things one way as opposed to the other. In fact, we used to re-use our carrier bags until we were offered new bags each time we shopped, which simply created a take-for-granted habit, which should therefore be easy enough to break. So a three-month ‘re-education' period is the optimum time to re-programme our minds and shed our excess habitual baggage."