Plastic bag charge to double to 10p and smaller retailers will have to start charging customers
Supermarkets reported a 86 per cent reduction in plastic bag use after the 5p tax was introduced in 2015
THE 5p charge for plastic bags is to DOUBLE to 10p, The Sun can reveal.
And the levy - which has lead to a dramatic drop in the use of supermarket bags - is to be rolled out to smaller retailers amid fresh environmental measures to be unveiled within days.
Ministers will next week launch a sweeping consultation on the Government's 25 year plan to tackle Britain's "throwaway culture."
Retail industry insiders have been told the measures will be contained in the listening exercise but have already been given the thumbs up by Theresa May and Environment Secretary Michael Gove.
Since 2015 supermarkets have been obliged by law to charge 5p on all single-use plastic bags - now that measure is set to be widened out to the High Street and newsagents.
Firms and shops with no more than 250 employees are currently exempt from the scheme.
Figures released last month showed an 86 per cent drop in plastic bag use at the UK’s seven major supermarkets since the scheme was introduced.
There were more than 7.6 billion single-use bags used in 2014 but last year that had fallen to just 1.7 billion.
That represents a drop from Brits using around 140 bags every year that generated 61,000 tonnes of waste, to around 20 bags.
The Sun Says
ENOUGH is enough. The Tories must end this fetish for piling new taxes on consumers.
Why double the 5p charge on plastic bags? It has already brought about a massive decline in usage. Great. Leave it at that. Why load yet more cost and inconvenience on shoppers?
Likewise the proposed 25p “latte levy” on disposable coffee cups. Retailers already offer discounts for supplying your own — they can afford to from their monstrous profits. Why burden us all with some new tax for good measure?
Only a tiny percentage of the plastic fouling our oceans comes from Britain. Most is from rivers in Asia and Africa.
The Government claims these new taxes have public support. Let’s see if that holds when the already exorbitant cost of a takeaway coffee soars yet higher.
The party of the infamous sugar tax is obsessed with bullying voters, making our lives harder and adding to our bills.
It’s a bad look for Tories.
Money raised by the levy is spent on good causes - with more £66 million donated by big firms last year.
Michael Gove said last month that “We want businesses to continue to look at what they can do to help improve our environment to leave it in a better state than we found it.”
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And the Government is under pressure to go further to tackle plastic waste.
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