SHOPPERS should be made to pay for using and throwing away plastic carrier bags, Swindon councillors have declared.

They are calling on Chan-cellor Gordon Brown to introduce a levy on plastic bags to reduce the amount of waste and environmental damage they cause.

Unlike more ecologically-friendly forms of packaging, such as paper, plastic bags can take many years to rot away decades or even a century or more in some cases.

The money raised would be invested in environmental and recycling projects.

A similar initiative introduced in the Republic of Ireland has been credited with reducing plastic bag use by 90 per cent and raising millions of euros in revenue.

Coun Chris Shepherd (Lib Dem, Freshbrook and Grange Park), who raised the issue at a Swindon Council meeting, said discarded bags were an increasingly regular eyesore.

"You see them in hedge-rows and being blown around by the wind," he said.

"If people were made to pay for them they might think twice about getting them."

Coun Shepherd said supermarkets and shops should provide paper bags as an alternative to plastic bags.