A small town in southwest Britain has joined the growing movement to ban plastic bags in what environmentalists believe is a first for Europe.

Shopkeepers in Modbury, a town of 1,500 about 360 kilometres southwest of London, began the switchover on Saturday, offering paper or cloth bags instead. The town has also declared an amnesty on plastic bags, encouraging residents to turn them in for recycling.

Rebecca Hosking, a wildlife camerawoman who lives in Modbury, encouraged the bag ban, saying the bags were wreaking havoc on marine life. She said she didn't expect the transition to be too difficult.

"Modbury's quite an old-fashioned town and a lot of people have wicker baskets to go out shopping anyway," Hosking told Sky News television.

Manitoba town first to ban bag in Canada

In April, the northern Manitoba town of Leaf Rapids became the first municipality in Canada to outlaw the use of plastic shopping bags. Earlier in March, San Francisco became the first city in North America to ban the of traditional grocery bags. The law prohibits large grocery stores and drugstores from using non-recyclable and non-biodegradable bags made from petroleum products.

The bags have also been banned in Bangladesh and Mumbai where storm sewers stuffed with plastic bags were deemed partially responsible for massive floods in 2002 and 2005. Other districts in South Africa, Ireland and Taiwan have also discouraged the use the plastic bags with fees and taxes.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group, about 500 billion plastic bags are discarded around the world annually. It is estimated a traditional plastic bag will break down and dissolve over the course of 1,000 years.