The fee for plastic carrier bags is set to double next year and will be extended to all shops across England, the government has announced.
From April 2021, single-use plastic bags will cost 10p – up from the current 5p – and smaller shops will no longer be exempt from the levy.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the announcement followed a public consultation last year in which the “vast majority” of respondents welcomed the changes.
The move was welcomed by environmental campaigners, but Greenpeace warned carriers bags were only “part of the problem”.
The levy on plastic bags was introduced in England in 2015, and recent figures showed the number of single-use bags distributed by large supermarkets has fallen by more than 95%.
The average person now buys just four single-use bags a year, compared to around 140 in 2014.
The UK’s beaches have also seen a 60% fall in the number of plastic bags, according to the Marine Conservation Society.
Environment secretary George Eustice said: ”The UK is already a world-leader in this global effort, and our carrier bag charge has been hugely successful in taking billions of harmful plastic bags out of circulation.
“But we want to go further by extending this to all retailers so we can continue to cut unnecessary waste and build back greener.
“I hope our pioneering track record on single-use plastics will inspire many more countries to follow suit, so we can take on plastic waste together and implement lasting change.”
Sam Chetan-Welsh, political campaigner at Greenpeace, said: “By raising the price of plastic bags again the Government is taking a small step in the right direction, but by now they should be taking great strides.
“Reinstating the previous price of carrier bags, but not taking action on bags for life, is only looking at one part of the problem.
“And it could be construed as tokenism when there are so many ways ministers know they could be driving fast and substantial reductions on plastic pollution.
“If they’re increasing costs for shoppers, ministers really have no excuse not to increase costs for the companies that are responsible for the escalating volumes of single-use plastic packaging in the first place.”
The supermarket giant Morrisons has said it plans to scrap its plastic ‘bags for life’ if a trial scheme offering customers stronger paper bags instead runs smoothly.
By removing the bags from shops, the supermarket chain said it would stop 90 million plastic bags being used each year, the equivalent of 3,510 tonnes.
But campaigners have argued that bags for life are considerably worse for the environment.