Thread by @FactCheck

Last week, the government claimed: “Sales of plastic bags by the seven biggest retailers in England have fallen by 90% since the 5p charge was introduced in 2015.”

But @factcheck found this figure is misleading…

The government’s figures only include thin, single-use plastic bags.

They do not include any "bags for life" – which now account for a significant proportion (roughly 28%) of all plastic bags sold by supermarkets.

We asked supermarkets to provide us with the number of bags for life they have sold. But @tesco and @sainsburys refused.

Co-op, M&S and Waitrose sold 58.8m bags for life between them, in 2018/19.

That’s a decrease of less than 2% since the year before.

@Tesco @sainsburys But last year 8 supermarkets DID publish their bags for life sales (including Tesco & Sainsbury's) - for a survey by @EIA_News.

Together, they sold a total of nearly 958m bags for life in just one year. Tesco sold the most (430m), while Sainsbury's sold 269m.

@Tesco @sainsburys @EIA_News Bags for life are much thicker than single-use bags, so they contain much more plastic.

The idea is that customers will use fewer of them – so the total amount of plastic being used over the course of a year will be less. But reports suggest this is may not always be working.

@Tesco @sainsburys @EIA_News Last year, the managing director of Iceland admitted the supermarket was actually using more plastic – not less – as a result of switching to bags for life.

"I haven’t yet reduced the total amount of plastic weight, even though I have eliminated 5p carrier bags."

@Tesco @sainsburys @EIA_News Read the full @factcheck report here: channel4.com/news/factcheck…