Plastic bag sales down 86 percent in ‘big seven supermarkets’ since 5p tax

The sale of plastic carrier bags has fallen by 86 percent across England’s seven biggest supermarkets since the introduction of a 5p charge in 2015.

The latest figures from Government show that customers bought nearly a quarter fewer carrier bags in 2017/18 compared to the previous year – a decrease of nearly 300 million bags.

The statistics have been welcomed by the Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, who said the figures represented how “working together” can help stop plastics ending up in the environment.

“These figures demonstrate the collective impact we can make to help the environment by making simple changes to our daily routines,” he said. “We want businesses to continue to look at what they can do to help improve our environment to leave it in a better state than we found it.”

A recent study by Cefas revealed since the 5p charge on plastic bags was introduced there has been an estimated 50 per cent reduction in plastic bag marine litter.

Thomas Maes, Marine Litter Scientist at Cefas said:

“Every plastic bag not purchased is one which will not end up in our sea, damaging habitats or harming marine life. Since efforts from across Europe came into effect, including the UK’s 5p charge, we have observed a sharp decline in the percentage of plastic bags captured by fishing nets on our trawl surveys of the seafloor around the UK as compared to 2010,” he explained.

“It is encouraging to see the efforts to reduce plastic bag usage by all of society, whether the public, industry, NGOs or government. These figures show that by working together we can tackle the marine litter problem by reducing, reusing and recycling.”