In this article

Reduce Reuse Recycle Biodegradable

Plastic bag blight The bag backlash Bag-free zones

Supermarket targets What you can do Have your say

They hang from trees, clog up waterways, litter beaches, blow along city streets. We get through 150 million a week. Plastic bags are a blight on our land. They only account for 3.5 to 5.3 per cent of the total plastic packaging used but they get everywhere.

Now, at last, the backlash against plastic bags is underway. Ireland showed the way by slapping a tax on plastic bags in 2002. Within a year the number of plastic bags given out dropped by 90 per cent. From those still used the revenue generated £2.25 million for the Dublin exchequer.

In the UK in the past year moves have been made to phase out the bag habit. The Government and major retailers have agreed to reduce by a quarter the number of plastic bags they hand out by the end of 2008. Already shoppers are getting the message as supermarkets offer incentives to those who reuse their plastic bags.

Tesco's customers can earn Club card loyalty points for not using new bags when they shop. This has already cut the use of them down by 25 per cent - to 3 billion. Sainsbury’s has seen a ten per cent drop in the number of free bags used and a 50 per cent rise in reusable bags. Marks & Spencer has begun charging customers 5p for bags that used to be given away free and donating the money raised to an environmental charity.

When Sainsbury's launched the cotton 'I am not a plastic bag' carrier designed by Anya Hindmarch in April 2007 as an alternative to plastic bags, there were queues for a style accessory that became a collector's item.

The biggest breakthrough could come if London bans plastic bags. San Francisco and Paris have already done so. The Devon town of Modbury was the first to set an example by becoming a plastic-bag free zone.

Shops including the local Co-op, the butcher, fruit shop and deli have replaced them with the town's own reuseable cotton alternative. Shopkeepers in around 80 other small towns and cities, including Brighton, are also moving towards a ban on the bags. Some farmers' markets too have stopped giving plastic bags to customers.

All 33 London councils are now looking into the problem of the estimated 1.6 billion bags given out in the capital each year. There has to be a change in legislation before they can ban them and it will be at least 18 months after their London Local Authorities (Shopping Bag) Bill is read in Parliament before this is likely to happen. In the meantime China and Australia are discussing banning the increasingly unwanted bags.

The major supermarkets have made pledges to reduce packaging, although many critics and consumers believe that more could be done. Friends of the Earth, for example, is encouraging supermarkets to investigate plant-based plastics for carrier bags.

• Asda has agreed to cut packaging by 25 per cent by 2008 on its own-brand packaging
• Co-op introduced the first biodegradable carrier bag in 2002 and uses degradable netting and trays for some of its organic fruit and vegetables
• By 2012 Marks & Spencer says all its packaging will be recyclable or compostable
• Morrison's introduced compostable packaging to its own-brand organic produce in 2007
• Tesco's less ambitious target is to reduce by 25 per cent packaging on own-brand and branded products by 2010
• Sainsbury's is stepping up the proportion of fruit and vegetables it sells loose and reducing by 25 per cent the amount of packaging on fruit and vegetables by 2008. Its new carrier bags are made with one-third recycled material
• Waitrose introduced the reusable 'bag for life' in 1997 (customers buy a bag for 10p, which is replaced for free when it wears out. Returned 'bags for life' are recycled into furniture). Fifty per cent of its organic range of fresh produce is available in degradable, biodegradable and compostable packaging

Here's what you can do to cut back on food-packaging waste:

• Buy fruit and vegetables loose or in paper bags
• Take bags with you to the supermarket
• Get into the habit of carrying a spare bag for spontaneous shopping
• Choose larger sizes rather than individually packaged portions. Buy a single larger size container (yoghurt, for example) and decant into smaller jars or containers as needed
• Look for biodegradable packaging, such as cardboard or cornstarch-based containers and buy these instead of alternatives wrapped in bulky plastic or polystyrene
• Find out if there's a local milkman who will deliver in glass bottles that can be used over and over again
• Ask supermarket managers what they're doing to reduce packaging waste and insist that they step up their efforts

Updated February 2008

Do you think that enough is being done to reduce food packaging? Do you re-use your carrier bags? And would you favour a 'ban' on plastic carrier bags? Share your views on the BBC Food message boards.