Dougie Poynter has ditched bottled shampoo in a bid to be more environmentally friendly.

The McFly bassist revealed he now uses bars of shampoo to wash his locks instead as it is better for the environment.

Speaking about the biggest changes he has made in his life to reduce his use of plastic, he said: “I think the single best swaps for me have been water canisters, I have quite a few of those. The amount of plastic water bottles I was going through before without even realising it….

“And using bars of shampoo, they are pretty rad. So the things you go through quite a lot, the real single-use stuff that it is in your control (to change).”

The 31-year-old is backing new research by GO Outdoors which claims that around half of the people (56%) they surveyed admitted to leaving rubbish, leftover food and drinks, as well as tents, at festivals.

He said: “I’ve been going to festivals and attending and playing festivals since I was 15. It actually surprised me, a lot of the stats.

“I’ve been campaigning the anti-plastic thing for a long time and tents was not really on my list, so I was very shocked to find that tents were being treated the same as single-use plastics, or like a plastic bottle.

“Last year, 250,000 tents were left behind at festivals in the UK, which is a staggering amount of plastic tents to just get thrown away and buried into the earth, and the plastic doesn’t biodegrade.”

The singer said he could not “confirm nor deny” if he had reunited with McFly to write new music this summer.

He has also penned a children’s book called Plastic Sucks! You Can Make A Difference, which is to be released in September.

It is his first solo project as an author and aims to teach children about the impact plastic has on the environment.