Specsavers, in St Mary's Place, has thousands of re-usable bags to give away – all readers need to do to claim one is to fill in the coupon on the right and take it into the store.

The bags, which are made from recycled materials, come in two sizes – a large bag for shopping and a smaller sandwich bag.

Pauline Allsopp, retail director at Specsavers, said: "Harborough people are really good at trying to take care of the environment. We just thought we would do our bit to help people out."

The give-away has been launched to tie in with a campaign against plastic bag use in Harborough district which the Mail is helping to spearhead.

The campaign, launched by Harborough Improvement Team's Environment Group, saw more than 1,000 re-usable bags given away to shippers during an action day held in The Square in May.

The group's future plans include developing a Harborough branded re-usable bag for shoppers and the creation of a bag-in-a-box scheme for businesses, which would see workers able to borrow a re-usable bag from work to use when shopping at lunchtime or after work.