Marks & Spencer is today launching an in-store ad campaign to highlight the success to date of its scheme to charge for plastic bags.

Window displays in more than 150 stores will reveal that customers of the retailer have reduced carrier bag usage by 80 per cent, saving 100 million carrier bags from landfill sites.

The campaign will also run in M&S food halls and on the retailer’s web site.

The ads will also show that£500,000 has been raised for environmental charity Groundwork.

The 5p charge for standard food carrier bags was launched with a trial in Northern Ireland in May last year, before being rolled out to the rest of the UK this year.

M&S Plan A director Richard Giles said: “Our customers have made a major impact already, but there is more work that we can do. Using our windows to communicate what we have achieved so far is a really powerful way to encourage even more M&S customers to change their behaviour and stop using single-use carrier bags.”