The report says that shoppers in Ireland are using 90% fewer bags since the tax of 15 cents (10p) per bag was introduced in March. Most Irish shoppers now keep their bags and reuse them. In Britain, only one in every 200 shopping bags is currently recycled.

In Ireland, the tax windfall is to be used to set up an Office for Environmental Enforcement that will help to dispose of unwanted domestic fridges and freezers. When the tax was introduced, Irish shoppers started recycling their bags virtually overnight. Figures from the first three months of the tax in Ireland show that bag usage by shoppers fell dramatically from an estimated 300 million over the three months to 23 million.

Martin Cullen, Irish environment minister, said: "When one considers the scale of the litter problem caused by plastic bags in the past and the resulting cost of clearing them to the taxpayer, it brings home how this incentive has captured the public imagination.

When Mr Meacher ordered the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to look at the viability of a bag tax, he said: "I would be arguing very strongly for putting something through here. Obviously, you have to talk about it with Government and get agreement but it is a cracking good idea."