The town's Fairtrade and Local Produce Action Group (Pocklington Flag) is gauging support from local shops and businesses and says the response so far had been positive.

Chairman of Flag and town councillor Martin Cooper said the main aims was to benefit the environment.

Mr Cooper said: "When we set up Pocklington Flag I was pleased to find the idea was already in the minds of the members.

"You only have to travel the A1079 to Hull to see the amount of plastic bags stuck in the hedges. The statistics are frightening, 1.2 trillion plastic bags per annum that do not biologically degrade, 90 per cent of marine litter is plastic, killing 100,000 million marine animals per year."

Pocklington's drive to become plastic bag free is believed to be the first such scheme in the East Riding. A spokesperson for East Riding of Yorkshire Council said it was not aware of any similar projects.

Mr Cooper said: "The benefits for the town is that we know that every bag refused is one less bag in the world, would it not be nice to say that Pocklington leads the way in the East Riding?"

The group is looking at what alternatives to plastic carriers could be used by businesses, such as biodegradable carriers and producing special 'Pocklington' fabric bags. Questionnaires have gone out across the town asking for responses to the idea of stopping plastic bags and if shops would consider using biodegradable ones.

Mr Cooper said: "The idea seems to be getting universal backing within the town, with many outlets already engaged in some form of restriction of use.

"I do believe that we are seeing a realisation that we are responsible for our use of non-sustainable products. There seems to be a desire to reduce the amount we use."

The majority of Pocklington's shops are independent and the businesses that are part of chains have also said they are interested.

Pocklington's Oxfam shop announced at the end of last year that once their stock of plastic bags had run out they would no longer provide bags for customers.

Pocklington's three supermarkets, Co-op, Sainsburys and Somerfield, have all given support to the idea, although all said they would have to consult with the Flag group further before officially backing the scheme.

Sainsburys said staff in all their stores had been instructed to only give out bags on request.

Mr Cooper said Flag would announce the scheme's next step after looking at the responses to the questionnaires.
For more information can contact him on 07805067062.