Lidl has vowed to crack down on plastic waste in the UK, announcing that it will remove 5p reusable plastic bags from shops – a move that it says will eliminate 134 tonnes of plastic each year.

The German discount retailer said on Friday that from the end of 2018, it will only offer 9p “bags-for-life” which will remove 67 million bags annually.

It said that it had also set goals around increasing the amount of recycled materials used for its own-brand packaging, with a target of 50 per cent by 2025. It wants to cut overall plastic packaging by 20 per cent by 2022.

“We’re proud of our clear, ambitious targets for the reduction of plastic waste. We have looked at plastic packaging in the context of our wider sustainability commitments and strongly believe that our circular approach will deliver a long-term solution,” said Christian Härtnagel, chief executive of Lidl in the UK.

“We want to create a major shift in the way that packaging and plastics are used, to ensure that these resources are recovered and retained, eradicating plastic waste and moving us towards a truly circular system in the long term,” he added.

“We know our business and the wider industry needs to take big steps to achieve this; that's why we have set clear and ambitious targets, not only to ensure that our packaging is completely recyclable, but that we are driving demand for this material by driving recycled content.”

Major retailers and food outlets have in recent months committed to reducing plastic waste, especially in the wake of MPs earlier this year calling for a 25p charge on the price of a takeaway coffee served in a disposable cup.

This week, however, it emerged that the Government had failed to back the so-called “latte levy” and had rejected a recommendation to ban disposable cups altogether by 2023.