Plastic Bag Purchases Drop 90% at Major England Retailers After Bag Fee Is Introduced

Shoppers push shopping carts towards a Sainsbury’s supermarket on April 29, 2018 in London, England. Chris J Ratcliffe / Getty Images Charging grocery shoppers a small fee for plastic bags works. At least that’s what the UK government has found. Since it introduced a five-pence fee for plastic shopping bags in 2015, plastic bag sales at England’s seven biggest retailers have fallen 90 percent, NPR reported . “No one wants to see the devastating impact plastic waste is having on our precious wildlife ,” UK Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers said as her agency released the findings Wednesday . “Today’s figures are a powerful demonstration that we are collectively calling time on being a throwaway society.” Our #PlasticBag charge is working. 🛍️ 490 million fewer single-use #plastic bags were sold by major supermarkets last year. That’s less plastic harming our #environment . Join us and #PassOnPlastic 👉 https://t.co/gk8txyuHpL pic.twitter.com/4g5sf76HmJ — Defra UK (@DefraGovUK) July 31, 2019 The data comes from Asda, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, The Co-operative Group, Tesco and Waitrose. Together, the seven stores sold about half as many bags during 2018 – 2019 as they did the year before, a drop from one billion to 549 million, […]

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