Calls have been made to ban or tax carrier bags on the grounds that they are a waste, pollutant and danger to wildlife.

But Vincent O'Shea, of Oak Road, Stamford, says the manufacturing process and transport is energy efficient.

He also says carrier bags are widely used in homes and that sales of bin liners have gone up in countries such as Ireland, which is taxing carrier bags.

Mr O'Shea is the managing director of Birmingham-based company Europac-kaging Ltd, which produces a wide variety of bags including plastic, paper, cotton and jute.

He says a ban on plastic bags could push shops into using paper bags.
Mr O'Shea, 48, says the process to create plastic bags uses a third of the energy and half the pollution of paper bags, which weigh six times more and take up 10 times the storage space.

The businessman said: "It is a shame because it could create a situation where people believe they are doing good and focus on the effort rather than doing other things that could have a big impact.

Greenpeace has said that it is unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags and that it is not going to solve the problem."

The Carrier Bag Consortium, a group of UK suppliers fighting against possible levys, has issued information to say that plans for a tax in Scotland would put an extra 23,000 lorries onto the roads and that paper bags, which take up 35 times the volume in landfill than plastic, have the potential to degrade to carbon dioxide and methane.

Its factsheet says the sales of gauge bin liners, refuse sacks and nappy disposal sacks have gone up in Ireland since the tax and that bags comprise one per cent of all litter in the UK.