Plastic bags sales by the biggest supermarkets in England have gone down almost 50% in the last year, government data shows. Asda, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, the Co-op, Tesco and Waitrose sold 549 million single-use plastic bags in 2018-19. That’s almost half the previous year sales of one billion.
Overall, since a 5p fee was introduced in 2015, the number of single-use plastic bags being used has gone down by 90%. More than 25 billion fewer single-use bags have been issued by the seven biggest food retailers in the three and a half years of the levy, Government data suggests.
Customers now buy, on average, 10 bags a year – that’s impressive compared to the 140 bags they took in 2014. People started moving away from single-use plastic bags after shops started charging the 5p fee for them in 2015. Yet, in the past year, the downward trend has accelerated even more. Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers said the figures were “a powerful demonstration that we are collectively calling time on being a throwaway society.”
The growing awareness of plastic pollution could likely be responsible. TV documentary series Blue Planet II by BBC was the most-watched TV show of 2017. It was a series dedicated to helping highlight the scale of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.
Villiers said:
Our comprehensive action to slash plastic waste and leave our environment in a better state continues to deliver results, with our 5p charge reducing plastic bag sales by 90% in the big supermarkets.
No one wants to see the devastating impact plastic waste is having on our precious wildlife. Today’s figures are a powerful demonstration that we are collectively calling time on being a throwaway society.
Maddy Haughton-Boakes of the Campaign to Protect Rural England is pleased with the progress but still believes England could, and should, go further. He said:
The continued reduction in plastic bag use in our supermarkets is yet more evidence of the huge impact that a small financial incentive can have. Theresa Villiers must now build on this success by rolling it out to all small shops. There is absolutely no reason the charge shouldn’t be applied to all bags, paper as well as plastic, to bring an end to the use of these single-use items altogether.
The thing is, in England only retailers with more than 250 employees have to charge customers for the use of plastic bags. Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales there is a minimum 5p charge for all retailers regardless of the size of their business.
According to UK government scientists, the amount of ocean plastic will increase threefold in the next ten years if nothing is done. At the moment, approximately eight million metric tons of plastic enter the world’s oceans each year, which means that by the end of the decade 24 million metric tons of plastic will be entering into the oceans every year if people don’t change their ways. If today’s level of plastic pollution is killing one million birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals annually, imagine how many creatures we’ll be killing in the next ten years!
It is worth noting that although the number of single-use plastic bags used is lower, reusable plastic bag sales have increased. These reusable bags, also known as bags for life, contain more plastic. The government statistics don’t include these bags for life as they are supposed to be reused. However, they use more plastic and account for around 28% of all plastic bag sales.
The Times reported that an average household uses 44 bags for life in just one year. The managing director of Iceland told the paper:
These bags for life are a thicker, higher grade of plastic… We are selling less of them but it’s not yet less enough that it’s compensated in terms of the extra weight that they are for the fewer amount of bags that we are selling. So therefore I haven’t yet reduced the total amount of plastic weight, even though I have eliminated 5p carrier bags.
To find out more about what UK supermarkets are doing to tackle the plastic pollution crisis check out this article here.
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