Stores shamed for keeping cash from plastic bag levy

HIGH street shops have been accused of ‘cheating’ customers after keeping the plastic bag levy instead of donating it to charity.

A ‘ list of shame’ from the Department for Environment, Food and rural Affairs reveals sports retailer Decathlon and homeware store Tiger have both kept the profits from the charge aimed at tackling the plastic menace and reducing litter.

It shows supermarkets Lidl and Farmfoods kept part of the money, despite ministers telling stores they are expected to donate all proceeds to good causes.

The carrier bag levy, brought in four years ago following the Daily Mail’s Banish the Bags campaign, has had remarkable success, with plastic bag use falling 86 per cent since 2015. The number of bags issued each year by supermarkets has fallen from 7.5 billion to just one billion.

Defra states in its guidance for retailers that, after reasonable costs have been deducted, ‘it’s expected that you’ll donate all proceeds to good causes, particularly environmental causes’.

however, Decathlon has kept back £62,655 over the two years from 2016 to 2018, while Tiger has kept more than £178,000.

Lidl says it has donated a ‘significant proportion’ of its plastic bag levy proceeds, which total more than £2.3 million for 2016-17 and 2017-18. The supermarket chain refused to say how much of the money it had kept back.

Farmfoods, which raised more than £400,000 from the levy in 2017-18, gave some of the money to charities and sports, retaining the rest to pay for ‘green technologies’ within the business.

A spokesman for Decathlon said: ‘We have a new sustainability leader in the UK and she will take the lead on those projects, including where we will donate.’

A spokesman for Tiger said: ‘An administrative mistake has meant the proceeds of the sale of plastic bags weren’t donated as they should have been.’

The plastic bag charge is set to be extended to every shop, as ministers consult on doubling the levy from five to ten pence.