Bag charge is “working”

The number of plastic bags littering British seas has fallen sharply, suggesting that making retailers charge for them is working, reports The Times. The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science analysed almost 2,500 research trawls carried out around the UK in the past 25 years and found that, since 2010, the likelihood of nets bringing up plastic bags has more than halved. Wales introduced its charge in 2011, Northern Ireland followed suit in 2013, Scotland in 2014 and England in 2015. Since then, the number of plastic bags issued by big retailers in England has fallen by 80% – equivalent to six billion bags a year. Yet the report’s findings highlight the fact that bags are only part of the problem: there has been no change in the volume of plastic bottles and food packaging brought up in trawls, while the amount of debris from fishing boats has increased.