Bag charge is hailed a success after a massive drop in usage

SCOTLAND is winning the war on plastic bag waste, with shops handing out around 670million fewer of them since a 5p charge was brought into force.

Campaigners say the massive decrease is helping clean up Scotland. The 5p charge on plastic bags was introduced in Scotland in October 2014 following the Mail’s ‘Banish The Bags’ campaign.

Calum Duncan, head of conservation Scotland for the Marine Conservation Society, said: ‘It’s great to see the number of carrier bags continuing to fall as more people get used to the idea of taking their own bags to the shops.

‘Since the charge was introduced, our volunteers have seen a year-on-year decline in the number of plastic bags recorded on Scotland’s beaches during our annual Great British Beach Clean.’

Before the carrier bag charge was introduced, Scots were estimated to be using 800 million bags a year.

A report by the Scottish Government’s Zero Waste Scotland quango one year after the charge was introduced estimated that the figure had declined by around 80 per cent, to 150 million.

The Scottish Daily Mail has now analysed figures provided to the Scottish Government by a sample of 39 retailers which shows that they cut bag usage by a further 12.3 per cent in 2016.

If that figure is repeated across Scotland, it means the number of bags issued will now have fallen to 131.5 million.

Iain Gulland, chief executive of Zero Waste Scotland, said: ‘All the evidence shows that there is widespread support for the carrier bag charge and people are remembering to re-use their bags. We’ve even seen some major retailers take the bold step of stopping giving out single-use bags altogether.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We are committed to ambitious targets to reduce all waste by 15 per cent by 2025.’