Britain’s paper-bag industry is protesting against government plans to extend its proposed action against single-use carrier bags to include those made of paper, as well as plastic.

Nicholas Tomkins, chairman of the UK Bag Manufacturers Association, is seeking urgent talks with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to express his concern and seek an exemption for paper bags, which he claims are biodegradable and recyclable and present no threat to wildlife.

Mr Tomkins, a director of Welton, Bibby and Baron (WBB), a company founded in 1858 and which is Europe’s largest maker of paper bags, says that the current proposals would represent the death-knell for Britain’s thriving paper-bag industry, which employs 3,000 people directly and a further 6,000 through suppliers.

He says that although almost all plastic bags used in the UK are imported from the Far East, 99 per cent of paper bags are made domestically — many entirely from recycled material.

Mr Tomkins said: “We are extremely concerned about the impact this legislation will have on Britain’s paper-bag industry and it makes no sense from an environmental perspective.”

However, the Government remains opposed to an exemption. A Defra spokeswoman said: “Whatever a carrier bag is made of, using it once and discarding it is unacceptable. Single-use bags are a visible symbol of a throwaway society and the Government is committed to changing this.”

A public outcry over waste and the harm to wildlife caused by plastic bags prompted Alistair Darling, in the Budget last month, to propose legislation to impose a charge on one-use carriers from 2009, assuming that retailers do not make sufficient progress towards cutting numbers by the end of the year.

The spokeswoman said: “This charge will apply whether bags are paper or plastic. Substituting plastic bags with paper ones would result in higher environmental impacts. Paper bags come from a renewable resource, but they require more energy to produce, transport and recycle than plastic bags.”

The Government has indicated that it will include the new legislation in the Climate Change Bill this year and would donate any proceeds from the charge to environmental charities.

Mr Tomkins said that he expects to meet Joan Ruddock, the Defra Parliamentary Under-Secretary, in the next few weeks to discuss the issue. Dan Norris, Labour MP for Wansdyke, is also lobbying on behalf of the industry.

Mr Tomkins claims that WBB’s bags are made from either 100 per cent recycled paper or from sustainably farmed forests in Scandinavia, where three trees are planted for every one cut down. The company, which employs 300 people at a factory at Radstock, Somerset, produces 200 million retail paper bags for the UK each year. Customers include Primark, Selfridges, Pret A Manger and Boots.

WBB is steeped in the rich tradition of making paper bags. At the Paris Exposition of 1867, Messrs Bibby and Baron won a silver medal for the design of the world’s first automatic machine for making paper bags.

Mr Tomkins cites the case of the Irish Republic, which included an exemption for paper bags in legislation against plastic bags in 2002.

He said: “We hope that if the UK Government wants to levy plastic carriers they should exempt paper carriers, therefore following the Irish model, which has been extremely successful in removing plastic bag usage in food supermarkets while allowing paper carriers to continue to be used in sandwich bars, fashion and department stores, where purchases are likely to be more spontaneous.”

Material argument

FOR

— Paper carriers are not hazardous to marine animals or wildlife

— They are compostable and can be produced either from 100 per cent recycled material or sustainable forests

— Almost all paper carriers used in the UK are manufactured in the UK in an industry employing thousands

— Almost all polythene carriers are produced overseas

AGAINST

— Large amounts of energy are required to recycle and transport paper bags

— Any exemption could prompt big retailers simply to switch from plastic to paper

— Despite rising recycling rates, vast quantities of paper waste go to landfill every year in the UK

— Paper in landfill emits methane - one of the most harmful gases in terms of climate change

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