New Zealand is to become the first country to ban thin plastic bags used to purchase loose fruit and vegetables in supermarkets.

The new ban will also extend to plastic straws and cutlery, as the nation’s government expands its campaign against single-use plastics, which began in 2019 when it banned plastic carrier bags.

“New Zealand produces too much waste, too much plastic waste,” said New Zealand’s associate environment minister Rachel Brooking.

Ms Brooking said the 2019 bag ban has already prevented more than one billion plastic bags from being used in New Zealand, and the new ban on thin bags, which will come into force on Saturday, will add a further reduction of 150 million bags per year.

The decision was met with concerns the latest ban will not help the environment much if customers simply switch to using disposable paper bags in order to collect their fruit and vegetables.

But Ms Brooking says an investigation found “the answer was still yes, it’s still worth doing this”.

“But we really want to reduce single-use anything packaging,” she added.

“So we want people to be bringing their own bags and supermarkets are selling reusable produce bags.”

Ms Brooking said the emphasis will be on educating people but officials could impose penalties on businesses choosing to flaunt the rules.

New Zealand’s Countdown chain of supermarkets has started selling polyester mesh bags that can be washed and reused.

Catherine Langabeer, Countdown’s head of sustainability, said the mesh bags were tested to be reused up to 5,000 times each.

Countdown is working hard to get customers to think of reusable fruit-and-vegetable bags as the norm, she said.

“But we know change is hard and will take them a little while,” Ms Langabeer said. “We get some grumpy customers.”

She said other customers are finding creative ways to carry home their purchases without using any plastic.

Critics have questioned the liberal government’s environmental record, pointing out that the nation’s overall greenhouse gas emissions have not decreased since the government symbolically declared a climate emergency in 2020.

Plastic carrier bags are still available to purchase in UK supermarkets.

All large shops in England have been legally required to charge for single-use plastic shopping bags since 2015 - a move that has seen bags drop by mor then 95 per cent, according to the government. The legal charge was initially a minimum of 5p, but this was raised to 10p in May 2021 in a bid to further reduce usage.

Plastic fruit and vegetable bags are still widely available in many UK supermarkets, but some shops such as Waitrose have taken the decision to raplace them with compostable bags.