Online supermarket uses 18 plastic bags to deliver just 33 items

Promises made last year to cut back have been broken.

Sometimes a single item, such as a box of six eggs or a small pack of toilet rolls had a bag all to itself.

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Sainsbury's used an incredible 18 bags to pack 33 items - seven more than in a survey three months ago and 12 more than six months ago.

The Grocer magazine placed identical orders with five leading online grocers. Between them they used 54 bags - a sharp jump from 41 in the previous survey.

Only Asda improved its performance slightly, but still managed to use 12 bags.

Sandra Bell, supermarkets campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: "We keep hearing claims from the big supermarkets about being 'green' grocers.

"But it seems they can't even manage the simple task of cutting down on plastic bag use for online deliveries.

"Such a poor performance on a basic issue like this casts doubts on the likelihood of them delivering real change on more fundamental environmental problems such as cutting emissions."

Sainsbury's was by far the worst offender, packing an average of just 1.7 items in each bag.

Asda used 12 bags, down from 15 in the last quarterly survey, while Ocado - a delivery service which works in partnership with Waitrose - used ten, up from six.

Waitrose itself used eight bags, an increase of three. Tesco was the best, with six bags - but that was still two more than in the previous survey.

A spokesman for Sainsbury's said it took the issue "very seriously" and would investigate the results with the store concerned.

A £5 gift for your old M&S clothes

Marks & Spencer is launching a drive to encourage customers to recycle old clothes.

The chain has teamed up with Oxfam to slash the one million tonnes of clothing sent to landfill each year.

Customers who donate unwanted M&S clothes to Oxfam will receive a £5 voucher in return.

These will be valid for one month against purchases of £35 or more of M&S clothing, homeware or beauty products.

M&S chief executive Sir Stuart Rose said: "We are pleased that we have teamed up with Oxfam, the UK's biggest charity shop, to help customers to raise money for developing countries by recycling their clothes they no longer need."

The "clothes exchange" will run for a six-month trial from January 28.