.@DefraGovUK Last year supermarkets gave out 8.5bn single-use carrier bags. Let's #reusebags http://t.co/wLmZMpkqqS pic.twitter.com/1kyZHVHS48

— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) August 28, 2015

The Prime Minister’s Twitter account has been getting all righteous today, tweeting a link to a DEFRA article bemoaning the number of plastic bags we consume. The problem is so terrible that a 5p per bag charge will be levied in England later this year…

What Dave didn’t link to is a report commissioned by the Environment Agency in 2011 that found the production of a reusable cotton bag emits so much CO2 that you would need to reuse one 131 times before it balanced out the tiny CO2 emission of a high-density polyethylene plastic bag used just once. You would think with CO2 emission threatening our very existence, making plastic bag usage mandatory would be top of Dave’s greenest government ever agenda. The cat is out the bag…