ASDA has been forced to order dozens of baskets for a store in Cambridge as customers keep taking them home instead of buying 9p resusable bags.

The baskets started going missing after the supermarket giant began phasing out 5p plastic bags and replacing them with 9p Bags For Life.

In February 2018, Asda pledged to end the sale of the 5p bags by the end of the year and stocks are not being replenished.

The Asda store in the Beehive Centre in Cambridge now only has 40 baskets left for its customers, until 100 new plastic green baskets arrive next week, according to the BBC.

An Asda spokesman asked "that the small number of customers who are taking our baskets home with them use their bags for life instead".

The Sun Online has contacted Asda for comment.

It's thought the Cambridge store is the only Asda branch currently experiencing a basket shortage.

The 5p fee on plastic carrier bags came into force in England on October 5 2015.

The Government introduced a law requiring all supermarkets and large stores to charge a minimum of 5p for every carrier they handed out.

In 2014, the number of single-use plastic bags handed out by supermarkets in England rose for the fifth year running to 7.6billion - the equivalent of 140 bags per person.

This year UK supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Aldi, Lidl and Morrisons have pledged to get rid of single-use plastic bags by the end of the year.

Iceland has also pledged to stop using plastic by 2023 on its own-brand products and has also released a range of microwave ready meals that come in paper packaging.

Supermarkets have been taking action following Prime Minister Theresa May's pledged to eliminate synthetic packaging altogether and introduce plastic-free aisles in supermarkets.