Markets and shopping centers should be banned from giving away free plastic bags to shoppers, Le Van Khoa, director of HCMC Waste Recycling Fund, told an environmental conference on Tuesday.
Khoa said the ban could be phased in, applying first to supermarkets and shopping centers from next year and then to all markets and retail outlets in 2015.
“Consumers tend to use bags without thinking because they’re free but they would think twice if they had to pay for each bag,” Khoa said.
Bui Cach Tuyen, deputy head of Vietnam Environment Protection Agency under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE), said the consumer habit of using plastic bags was creating environmental problems.
Tuyen said other countries and territories were also seeking alternatives to plastic shopping bags.
Since last September in the US city of San Francisco, he said, only cloth, biodegradable and reusable bags in supermarkets and drugstores were used.
Taiwan banned plastic bags from supermarkets last year and China imposed a similar ban two months ago.
Nguyen Van Phuoc, deputy director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said current practices meant the city was drowning in plastic shopping bags.
A Waste Recycling Fund survey of employees and customers at supermarkets and shopping centers in HCMC found only 7 percent of shoppers brought their own bags, the fund’s Ngo Nguyen Ngoc Thanh told the conference in HCMC, organized by the fund and DNRE.
Some of those surveyed said that bringing their own bags was inconvenient, especially as they could use the supermarket’s plastic bags for free.
More than 80 percent of those surveyed said they knew disposable shopping bags were bad for the environment but they continued to use them.
Only 10 percent said they would reduce their use of plastic bags for the good of the environment.
The remaining 90 percent said they would cut down on using plastic shopping bags if authorities regulated their use.
Many of HCMC’s supermarket and shopping center owners are concerned about the impact on their business of charging for shopping bags.
Dam Chi Phuong, deputy director of Saigon Supermarket, said he wondered if the extra charges on every bag used would reduce supermarket sales.
Meanwhile, Maximark said it was still unable to reach an agreement with manufacturers of biodegradable bags on price.
Big C supermarket chain has used biodegradable bags in the north but it still fears the practice won’t be welcome in the southern region, where it has many customers.
Khoa said reusable bags could be another plastic bag alternative.
Kim Ae Seon from the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Environment told the conference that disposable bags were only used for fresh meat and fish in that country.
Pham Ha Anh Thuy from Metro Cash & Carry Vietnam – the first market chain in the country to offer reusable bags made from nylon – said many customers liked using more environment-friendly bags.
But Phuong from Saigon Supermarket said reusable bags were 3 to 4 percent more expensive than disposable bags and broke down easily.
However, Le Loc, administrative head of Phuc Le Gia Company, which produces reusable bags, said unused bags could be stored for two years as long as they were kept away from the sun and rain.
Another alternative, Khoa suggested, was biological bags made from farm products such as potato, corn or jute.
In 2006 Tran Quoc Toan, from the Mekong Delta’s Ben Tre Province, invented a type of reusable bag made from sugar cane dregs and coconut fibers.
The bags decompose into humus after one, three or six months according to the amount of additives such as gypsum and pine resin.
Toan said he is looking for about VND1 billion (US$60,400) to invest in technology and equipment.
Nguyen Trung Viet from the DNRE said the government should pay more attention to Toan’s product, noting that the MNRE had reserved about VND500 billion ($30.2 million) to support such environment-friendly projects.
The DNRE plans to submit its plastic shopping bag reduction proposal to the HCMC People’s Committee soon.
Source: TN, Agencies |
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