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Plastic bag waste
150 million bags are used in Britain every week. Most of them cannot be recycled and will end up in a landfill site. Given that a single plastic bag will take 500 years to decompose, this means a large number of plastic bags will be sitting in landfill sites for a long time. In 21 years supermarkets will have provided us with enough plastic bags to cover the whole of England! We all need to do more to combat the problem and re-think the amount of plastic bags we use.
You can help by:
- not taking plastic bags you don't need! And let the store manager of cashier know why you are not taking them
- using Bags for Life! Many supermarkets run Bags for Life scheme and some supermarkets give a penny back for using their own bags
- find local shops selling re-usuable bags (such as bags made of cloth or string) and let your friends and family know about this service
- write to the head office of your local supermarket and suggest how they could cut down on their expenses and help the environment by charging for plastic bags and encouraging customers to bring their own.
Further information
DEFRA (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)