Plastic cutlery and polystyrene cups will be banned in England from October

The crackdown on single-use plastics will also cover plates, take-out containers and balloon sticks - as an estimated 2.7 billion cutlery at disposable are used in England every year

The crackdown on single-use plastics will also affect plates, take-out containers and balloon sticks (

Image: Getty Images)

Plastic cutlery and polystyrene cups will be banned in England from October, ministers have announced.

The crackdown on single-use plastics will also affect plates, take-out containers and balloon sticks.

However, the ban will not apply to plates, trays and bowls used in pre-packaged foods ready for sale.

An estimated 2.7 billion single-use cutlery items are used in England each year, but only 10% are recycled.

If all of these pieces were lined up, they would circumnavigate the globe more than eight and a half times, based on a 15cm cover.

Plastic pollution takes hundreds of years to break down and causes serious damage to our oceans, rivers and land.

An estimated 2.7 billion single-use cutlery sets are used each year in England (

Picture:

Jack Taylor)

Similar bans have already been introduced in Scotland and Wales.

Single-use plastic straws, stirrers and cotton swabs were banned in England in 2020.

Cotton swabs were removed from the ten most common beach litter in the UK after the ban, according to the Great British Beach Clean 2021.

Under the new legislation, the ban on single-use plastics will be enforced through civil penalties.

However, failure to comply or repeated violations may result in prosecution for a criminal offense subject to a fine.

Environment Secretary Therese Coffey said: "We all know the absolutely devastating effects plastic can have on our environment and our wildlife. We have listened to the public and these new bans on single-use plastics will continue our vital work to protect the e...