The promotion by groceries giant Park-n-Shop, which is controlled by Asia's richest man Li Ka-shing, depicts a huge wave of plastic bags engulfing the earth in a message hoped to encourage shoppers to use fewer polluting plastic carrier bags.

But the environmental group Friends of the Earth have hit out, saying the ad was "inconsiderate" to those who lost family members in the December 26 Indian Ocean tsunamis that killed some 217,000 people.

The poster, which will go into circulation next week, was "strange and unpleasant" the green group's spokesman Hahn Chu Hon-keung was quoted as saying in the South China Morning Post newspaper.

Hong Kong lost 28 people to the waves, sparked by a giant earthquake deep below the ocean off the coast of northern Indonesia.

The supermarket defended the advertisement, with a spokeswoman saying it was designed to shock shoppers into recognising the huge impact the millions of plastic bags given away each day has on the environment.

Hong Kong's government drew criticism when it announced it was considering the introduction of a plastic bag tax to reduce the number of shopping carriers.