Plastic litter of all descriptions is blamed for suffocating and strangling a million seabirds and 100,000 mammals annually worldwide.
“Vets treat thousands of cases of animals hurt by rubbish each year and amongst those are cases where horses, cows and even domestic pets have choked on plastic.
A levy on plastic bags was introduced in Ireland in March 2002, and several other countries are trying the same approach.
The number of plastic bags given out by the nine main supermarket chains in the UK is estimated at 17.5 billion annually – enough to cover the whole of England within 21 years.
