England sees rise in single-use plastic bag sales

This follows the introduction of the carrier bag charge which was introduced in 2014. According to figures published by Defra, the 102 retailers in England who reported data sold a total of 437 million single-use bags, representing a 7% increase compared to 2023/24. The seven largest retailers – Asda, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, The Co-operative Group and Waitrose – also reported a 6% increase from last year, selling nine million more bags. Much of this plastic ends up being sent to landfill or incineration, due to complexity in recycling the material.

Despite this increase, the latest figures still represented a 79% reduction in sales compared to 2016/17. Tesco and Waitrose have reported that they had sold no single-use plastic carrier bags since 2022-23. Prior to the introduction of the charge, WRAP reported that the main retailers in England issued 7.6 billion single-use carrier bags in 2014. This amount has reduced by over 7.4 billion bags, a decrease of almost 98%.

However, Gudgeon suggested that the 2024-25 data is a warning sign: “This data shows that there is a long way to go before we are a truly circular economy and greater efforts must be made to drive behavioural change and help businesses close circularity gaps and decouple growth from resource use.

Source: Let’s Recycle