Billions of harmful plastic
bags have been stopped from blighting our towns and countryside
thanks to the single-use carrier bag charge, new figures reveal
today.
The 5p charge was introduced in
supermarkets in 2015 and since then usage at the main retailers
has dropped by a staggering 97%. Meanwhile, over £200 million has
been voluntarily donated by retailers to good causes in that
time.
As a result of the charge, the
average person in England now buys around three single-use
carrier bags a year from the main supermarkets, compared with
around 140 in 2014.
The charge was last
year increased to 10p and extended to all
businesses. This has helped further bring the
number of bags used down by over 20% from 627 million in 2019/20
to 496 million in 2021/22.
Environment Minister
said:
“Our plastic bag charge has
ended the sale of billons of single-use bags, protecting our
landscapes and ensuring millions of pounds is redistributed to
worthy causes.
“There is much more to do to
tackle the problem of plastic waste. That is why we are building
on our single-use plastic bans and introducing the deposit return
scheme for bottles to fight back against littering and drive up
recycling rates.”
The number of single-use
carrier bags reported by the main retailers was 197 million in
2021/22, down from 271 million in 2019/2020, the previous
comparable year* – a reduction of 27%. This is a huge drop from
the 7.6 billion used in 2014 before the charge was
introduced.
In 2021/22, retailers donated
£10 million to good causes in education, arts, heritage, sports,
environment, health, charity or volunteering sectors, or causes
chosen by customers and staff.
Adam
Herriot, Sector
Specialist, Resource
Management,
WRAP said:
“Flexibles remain one of the
most common plastics in our bins, but just like pots tubs and
trays we’re now at a point where the tide is turning on flexible
plastics. Today, nearly 5,000 stores nationwide have front of
store collections where people can drop off their unusable bags
once they reach their end of life.
“So not only do we have less
single-use shopping bags to worry about, we have somewhere
convenient to put them when we go shopping to make sure they are
recycled.”
This builds on the government’s
action to turn the tide on plastic waste.
This year we introduced a
world-leading plastic packaging tax, while our deposit return
scheme will ensure billions more drinks bottles and cans are
returned to shops and recycled.
We have already banned
microbeads in rinse-off personal care products and restricted the
sale of plastic straws, stirrers and cotton
buds.
We have consulted on banning
single use plastic cutlery, plates and certain types of
polystyrene cups, and are also looking at evidence on other
problematic single use plastics – including wet wipes.
ENDS
Notes to
editors:
- The latest summary of data for the single-use carrier bag
charge can be found here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carrier-bag-charge-summary-of-data-in-england
- *It is important to note that the data for 2020/21 cannot be
directly compared with other years, due to unique circumstances
relating to the Covid-19 pandemic.
- WRAP reported in 2014 that the main retailers circulated 7.64
billion single use carrier bags in England. Our data for the year
April 2021 to April 2022 shows that the main retailers sold 197
million single use carrier bags, a reduction of over 97% on the
number of carrier bags since the charge was introduced.
