Supermarket giant Asda has vowed to ditch plastic carrier bags for online shopping.

The retailer is the latest UK firm to confirm plans to reduce the amount of single-use plastic bags, following Boots’ announcement last month that it will get rid of them completely, in favour of paper bags.

Asda said the move, which will see online deliveries come to customers’ doors without bags, will remove around 85 million plastic bags from production each year.

It will remove the option to have a bagged delivery from its home delivery and click & collect orders from July 31.

The eco-friendly move, which will save over 500 tonnes of plastic, follows a “successful” trial period in south-west England and from its Dartford home shopping centre.

Asda, which stopped providing single-use bags in its stores last year, said the initiative will make it the first supermarket to axe single-use bags from its operations.

To help shoppers with the change, Asda delivery drivers will offer to unload home delivery customers’ shopping for them in a place that is convenient, the supermarket said.

Simon Gregg, Asda vice president for online grocery, said: “We’re working hard to reduce avoidable plastic wherever we can – because helping to reduce its impact on the environment matters to us, and we know it matters to our customers too.

“This is a simple change but will have a significant impact on the amount of plastic we use as a business.”

Since 2018, Asda said it has also removed 6,500 tonnes of plastic from its own-brand packaging.

In recent months, hundreds of companies have made pledges to cut back the amount of plastic and packaging they use.

A plastic bag tax was introduced last year, placing a charge of 5p on single-use carrier bags.