New Plastic Bag Law in Japan
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| photo from the internet |
A new law goes into effect in Japan on July 1, 2020, making it manditory for all grocery stores, convenience stores, and other retailers to charge a fee for single use plastic bags. The law doesn't specify the price, but does say it must be at least one yen. Many grocery stores already charge for bags. Where I shop, a small bag is three yen and a slightly bigger bag is five yen. Since I always have my daypack with me, it is more convenient for me to refuse the bag and carry things in my backpack.
Japan uses between 30 to 50 billion plastic bags a year (more than 300 bags per person each year), so reducing non-recyclable plastic is a priority for the country.
What about in your country? Is plastic waste a problem? Do stores charge for plastic shopping bags? Do you carry your own shopping bag? I'm curious to know.
9 comments:
Pamela: I am so happy they are doing this some states here in the USA are requiring payment for plastic bags I am seeing more and more reusable bags being used.
I volunteer at the food shelf we are asking people to bring their own bags, some do some do not.
I hope you are having lovely weather here it is gloomy and raining.
Catherine
Our law here at home (Australia) is you have to provide your own shopping bags at supermarkets. Majority bring their own but if you don’t you can buy a bag. Majority of shoppers still use a plastic bag for fruit and vegetables, I don’t, I place all mine unbagged in a cane basket, I have seen shoppers put one apple or one potato in a plastic bag. I wrap my wastage in newspaper.
We're not charged a fee for plastic bags, but we (used to) use reusable bags most of the time. We keep them in the car, so they're easy to remember typically. However, with COVID-19 being a concern currently, we've been using the plastic bags so that we can just toss the bags into a corner and forget about them for a while after returning home. But even before COVID-19, we'd bring any bags we got (either because we didn't bring in enough or just due to produce bags) to the grocery's bag recycling. So we'll do that with these, eventually. And hopefully in not too long, we can go back to our reusable bags.
We have not he plastic shopping bags at our supermarket for over a year now. We bring our own or if people forget they pay 25 cents for a paper grocery bag. But as jacaranda above says we still have smaller plastic bags for fruit and vege. I have fabric drawstring bags for that purpose and try not to bring any plastic bags into the house. I think it is a great idea to cut down on the plastics we use.
Free plastic bags were banned here a few years ago now. You can buy sturdy reusable ones. I have a few plus a couple of baskets for when I go shopping. xx
In Sweden, charging for plastic (or paper) bags started many years ago. Most people seem to reuse them again and again or investing in study, collapsable 'boxes' if they go shopping by car and place the groceries in the trunk. A neat nylon shopping bag is a must in your handbag, and recently the fabric drawstring bags for vegetables that Kiwikid mentioned are getting popular.
Many stores here will let you choose between plastic and paper. But there is no charge for either one. When groceries are delivered as during the pandemic, they're always in plastic and it's not recyclable -- they tell us to throw them in our regular trash. I use them as liner bags for the waste basket, which gets at least one more use, and for cat litter. But ultimately, it's still a bad deal for the environment.
You are cgarged for plastic bags usually, i always have a bag with me when i shop. Sadly, at the moment i have shopping delivered with not bek g allowed out and they leave it on the doorstep in plastic bags. We are saving them to donate elsewhere when we can.
We've been charged for bags for a while now, usually about 10-20ct for the plastic ones, and I always bring my own.
When we were in Japan, we got SO many plastic bags, everything was double bagged! Once we refused a bag in a conbini and the clerk looked as if we'd just personally hurt his feelings.
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