Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has said he wants to set an industry standard for biodegradable carrier bags in tandem with the 5p charge on plastic bags announced by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg. Bags which complied could be sold at a lower cost or avoid the new 5p bag charge entirely. Speaking at the Conservative […]

Shops in England will be forced to charge 5p for all plastic carrier bags they sell, after the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced the measure at the Liberal Democrat party conference. Speaking over the weekend Mr Clegg said: “Plastic carrier bags blight our towns and countryside. They take hundreds of years to degrade and […]

A new five pence charge on carrier bags in Northern Ireland brought in at the end of spring may have cut their use as much as 80%. The impressive reduction was revealed by official statistics released by the Department of the Environment (DOE) this week. The Provisional Carrier Bag Levy figures show 17.5 million single […]