The Charities Aid Foundation says that official figures show that the plastic bag levy has raised at least £29m for good causes since it launched in October 2015.
In a statement released today, CAF said that the plastic bag levy had conservatively raised £29m for charity in its first six months. CAF said that it alone had redistributed some £10m worth of levy money to charity from retailers such as Aldi, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s.
The government made the announcement regarding the £29m figure in a statement last week.
Aldi, which has been working with CAF’s corporate team to help redistribute the money raised from the levy, has raised approximately £1.1m through the sale of carrier bags in its stores. Some £580,000 of this has been donated to the RSPB as part of a new three-year partnership.
Between October 2015 and April 2016, Marks & Spencer said that it raised £1.9m for a number of charities via CAF, including Breast Cancer Now, Unicef and WWF. Despite not being subject to the levy because it only offers shoppers higher-quality 'bags for life', Sainsbury’s has also contributed to “over 1,000” local charities through CAF with money raised from the sale of its 5p bags.
A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's said that the supermarket had donated "over £2m" to good causes through the levy.
Klara Kozlov, head of the corporate clients team at CAF, said: “Not only has the introduction of the plastic bag levy benefitted the environment, but it has had a huge positive impact for charities.
“Millions of pounds has been raised for good causes which has helped to fund vital work which otherwise may not have been possible."
The 5p bag levy was launched in October 2015. At the time of launch, the government estimated that it could raise as much as £73m a year for charities.
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