The south Devon town of Modbury has become the first plastic-bag-free place in the UK.

All 43 traders and shopkeepers in the South Hams town have stopped providing plastic bags to customers.

The plastic bags have been replaced by large reusable cotton and jute bags, smaller 100 per cent biodegradable cornstarch bags and recyclable paper bags.

The scheme, which came into effect on May 1, was the brainchild of Rebecca Hosking, a wildlife camerawoman who lives in the town.

Rebecca Hosking: "What really brought it home for me was one day filming a turtle. It had a plastic bag in its mouth and was slowly dying, there was nothing we could do."

Hosking, 33, was reduced to tears as she filmed marine life off Hawaii for the BBC2 programme, Natural World.

She told the BBC: "What really brought it home for me was one day filming a turtle. It had a plastic bag in its mouth and was slowly dying, there was nothing we could do.

"We were also filming albatross who were picking up plastic and feeding it to their chicks and we saw so many suffer a slow and painful death. I turned the camera off and just broke down crying."

On her return from Hawaii, Hosking set out on an ambitious mission to turn the town into a plastic-bag-free zone.

And with the help of local businesses, she has achieved her goal.

It is hoped that other small towns in the UK will now follow suit and also become plastic-bag-free.

The world uses over 1.2 trillion plastic bags a year, according to an article on the Modbury Chamber of Commerce and Information Centre website.

About 1 million seabirds choke or get tangled in plastic nets and other debris every year, while around 100,000 seals, sea lions, whales, dolphins, other marine mammals and sea turtles suffer the same fate, the article said.

A person uses a plastic bag on average for only 12 minutes, Modbury Plastic Bag Free highlighted on its website.

The site also revealed that a plastic bag can take between 500 to 1000 years to break down in the environment.