Britain's retailers have exceeded the voluntary target to cut carrier bag consumption that they set in an agreement with the Government in 2007 . According to a statement published today by the Waste and Resources Action Programme - WRAP - which has monitored the process the target 25 per cent reduction in the number of bags given out has led to an actual reduction of 26 per cent in 2008 from the reference period of 2006. This has been amplified by other factors to reduce the environmental impact - defined as the amount of virgin material used in carrier bags - by 40 per cent since 2006. In hard numbers, the total number of bags in circulation has reduced from 13·4 billion in 2006 to 9·9 billion in 2008, reducing the weight of material by 23,000 tonnes. WRAP is also monitoring agreements between the Scottish Government and supermarkets and between Defra, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment and the British Retail Consortium and its supermarket members. Both agreements aim to reduce the number of single use carrier bags issued to consumers by 50 per cent by the end of May this year.