Plastic bag usage down by nearly 50%

Back in 2006 the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and UK’s leading supermarkets pledged to cut the amount of single-use plastic bags used in their supermarkets by 50%. Since then they have been reducing the number of bags used every year, but this year for the first time the target is in sight.

In 2006 we were using a shocking 10.6 billion plastic bags a year. This is an inconceivably large number of bags, with an equally inconceivable amount of zeros on the end of it… 10,600,000,000! However, now this figure has been nearly halved to 6.1 billion, and the total weight of material used to make these bags has more than halved.

BRC director general, Stephen Robertson is thrilled with this progress, saying:

"This is a tremendous achievement by supermarkets, customers and staff, especially as between 2006 and 2009 the amount of goods sold by participating retailers grew by over 6%. The sustained reduction shows that customers are permanently adopting the habit of re-using their bags. The reduction in bag use is great news, but it's the halving of the total weight of single-use carrier bags which shows retailers really scoring on the crucial issue of reducing environmental impact."

A reusable shopping bag seems to be the accessory of choice for shoppers at the moment. Whether you’ve got one of Anya Hindmarch’s sought after “I’m Not a Plastic Bag” bags, or one of the new, floral “Bag For Life” bags from Waitrose, you can feel safe in the knowledge that every time you use it, you're knocking another digit off the 6.1 billion bags used per year, and helping to get Britain to its 50% fewer bags target.

Written by: Emily Boyd