Killer Bags Threaten Environment

9 April 2014, 11:23 | Updated: 9 April 2014, 11:34

An estimated 10.6 Billion plastic bags will be given out in the next year.

Surfers Against Sewage who are based in St Agnes in Cornwall, are encouraging us to join their pledge to stop using single use plastic bags, to help save the marine environment and put an end to the unnecessary deaths of marine life.

In 2015, the government is bringing in a 5pence per bag charge, but by then 10.6 billion will have been used. The average person in England will use 133 plastic bags in a year.

Turtles in particular fall victim to plastic litter, mistaking plastic bags for jellyfish. They then eat them and suffocate, or can get tangled in them.

Over 100,000 marine mammals die each year because of plastic litter in our seas, mainly plastic bags.

Supporters making the pledge to stop using single-use bags will learn how many bags they have personally offset and their pledge will be added to a grand total, highlighting the number of bags prevented from entering the environment or waste streams nationally before the bag charge comes into effect on the 1st October, 2015.

Supporters making the Break The Bag Habit pledge are also invited to share these striking images, and other impactful countryside and coastal scenes spoilt with single-use bags across their networks to generate more pledges.

You can find out more about the pledge HERE