Customers from the big supermarkets now buy 10 bags a year - compared to 140 bags in 2014.
Asda, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, the Co-op, Tesco and Waitrose sold 549 million single-use plastic bags in 2018-19, down from one billion in the previous year.
Since 2015, when a 5p charge was introduced to tackle plastic pollution, the number being used is down by 90%.Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers said the figures were"a powerful demonstration that we are collectively calling time on being a throwaway society." The big move away from plastic bags after shops started charging for them in 2015 was already well-known - but that downward trend has accelerated again in the past year.
That could partly be due to more awareness of plastic pollution. TV series Blue Planet II helped to highlight the scale of plastic pollution in the world's oceans and
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