UK supermarket Tesco has announced that it gave out 1.5 billion fewer single use plastic carrier bags to customers in the last year.
The UK Government introduced 5p charge on plastic bags on 5 October last year to stop plastic waste damaging the environment.
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Tesco stated that its customers shopping on tesco.com have also cut the number of bags they use, with 57% of online shoppers selecting ‘bagless’ deliveries.
Tesco UK & ROI communications director George Gordon was quoted by ciwm-journal.co.uk as saying: "We’re encouraging our customers to use fewer single-use bags, so these figures are really encouraging. Also the money raised from our customers buying bags is making a big difference to local communities across the country.
"Thanks to Bags of Help, nearly £12m has been spent so far on local environmental improvement projects like parks, sports facilities, school playgrounds and community gardens, projects that have all been chosen by our customers.
"Going forward, we will help customers do even more for their communities by bringing together more projects for them to vote on every month.”
Tesco has partnered with Groundwork, an environmental improvement charity, for its Bags of Help programme.
