Environment

Sainsbury's estimates it will give out 520 million fewer single-use plastic bags to customers this year after just two days of its "Make the difference" campaign.

The supermarket issued around 10 million free "bags for life", which normally cost 10p, during the first two days of the campaign, launched in April, to promote a more sparing use of plastic bags.

The news came as chief executive Justin King today announced quarterly results that were not as good as stock market analysts had predicted, despite total sales growth of 5.7%, excluding fuel.

This comes a day after Tesco said rising interest rates might harm future demand.