MALVERN could soon be joining the ranks of towns across the country that are banishing plastic bags.

Malvern Hills District councillors unanimously supported a motion at full council by Green Party councillor John Raine to take the lead in promoting a plastic bag-free area.

Coun Raine said: "I was absolutely thrilled that the motion was unchallenged and members accepted that the council should be leading on this issue."

He said he had collected more than 200 signatures supporting the idea in an hour while out and about in Malvern.

Modbury in Devon, Hay-on-Wye and Brighton have all become plastic-bag-free and there are talks about Evesham introducing a similar scheme.

The council fully supported Coun Raine's motion of promoting a change in supply and demand habits towards the use of more durable and natural fibre bags by working with the public, retailers and their trade associations across the district.

The council referred two other parts of the motion to its executive committee due to their resource implications. These were that the council should itself switch to using more environmentally-friendly and reusable sacks instead of plastic ones issued for refuse and recycling and that a date of December 31 2008 should be set for the district to go plastic-bag-free.