Consumers support plans to charge 5p for using plastic bags.

Paper shopping bags could see a rise in usage after plans to introduce a small charge for plastic bags were backed by consumers.

A poll by Which? found that 56 per cent of people in England and Scotland support the idea of paying 5p for plastic bags from retailers.

However, of those which opposed the plans, 70 per cent thought they already paid enough for shopping and 45 per cent preferred receiving free bags.

In Wales a charge is already in place, while Northern Ireland is planning on introducing the policy next year.

Consumers were found to be very aware of the environmental impacts of using plastic bags, with half of shoppers who have used an online supermarket in the past year claiming that too many bags were used to pack their food.

Supermarkets are one of the biggest users of plastic carrier bags, providing nearly 800 million more single-use bags last year than two years ago, figures from Waste Resources Action Plan show.

This pushes the number of plastic bags supplied to supermarket shoppers up to eight billion.

The survey from the consumer watchdog also showed that eight per cent of shoppers throw away their plastic bags straight away, with the rest reusing them at least once.

Supermarkets were blamed for not encouraging customers to recycle their plastic carrier bags, despite many signing an agreement in 2008 to half their numbers of single-use plastic bags by 2009.

They achieved a 48 per cent reduction, however this has since risen.

A spokesman for the Department of Farming and Rural Affairs said the organisation is keen to see improvements and a reduction in plastic bag use.

"We want to work with retailers to help them lift their game to cut the number of bags they hand out," they said, before adding that it would be monitoring the results of bag charges in Wales.