But the supermarket said checkout assistants have been briefed not to take plastic bags off the racks for customers, a practice that was continuing at the Dragon Parade store this week.

Morrisons will not ban plastic bags, but has said that cardboard boxes are available if customers want them.

Sainsbury's and Waitrose have both held one-off plastic bag-free trials, but neither has plans to roll out the scheme.

Asda and Sainsbury's do provide places to recycle bags, which are then transported to nearby depots.

Coun Jones has written to managers at each of the district's major supermarkets, asking for their help in cutting carrier bag use, but is yet to receive a single reply.

He said: "All the retailers recognise that packaging is a big problem and they are making some improvements in the amount of packaging they have, but they need to do more."

Two national chains have already banned plastic bags in their Harrogate district branches.

Sue Ryder Care made the move in December, while Oxfam stores in both Harrogate and Knaresborough will cease to provide carriers after their current stock is exhausted.

A spokesman for the company said: "The negative impact in litter and pollution of easy and free carrier bags has been enormous worldwide.Oxfam believes along with many others that this is unacceptable."

Over 13 billion plastic bags are used in Britain every year, with eight billion ending up in landfill.

On average, each Harrogate resident uses 167 plastic bags every year.

Since carriers take over 400 years to degrade, every bag that has ever been dumped in a landfill site is still there. Some scientists think it may take bags 1,000 years to be broken down.

Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they break down into smaller and smaller toxic pieces.

Almost 90 per cent of floating marine litter is plastic, killing over 100,000 seals, dolphins, turtles and albatross every year.

In Britain, we recycle only one out of every 200 plastic bags we use. Even if we improved that rate, plastic bags can only be recycled four or five times before becoming useless.

Nearly 80 towns in Britain have made moves to go plastic bag free. The first was Modbury in Devon in May last year.