Ban of plastic bags – more countries join the fight against plastic pollution

As an environmental consulting company based in Germany, we’ve been monitoring the enthusiasm of our neighboring countries’ efforts to reduce, or ban plastic bags from supermarkets. In the EU, such measures are triggered by Directive (EC) 720/2015, which aims at reducing the amount of distributed plastic carrier bags. EU-member states are called upon to set individual, national frameworks to attain the goals defined under the said directive, e.g. by banning bags from retail shops completely, or by introducing mandatory fees for plastic bags.

Measures to curb the tremendous amount of waste(d) plastics have been introduced by various countries around the world. Amongst some of the efforts in the past twelve months:

• July 2018: Chile adopts a law to ban the use of plastic bags in larger retail stores.
• October 2018: Kenya publishes a law draft regarding plastic bags ban.
• November 2018: The complete ban of plastic bags by 2020 passes the Austrian Council of Ministers.
• February 2019: The European Commission updates a Proposal for a Directive on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment, which includes light-weight plastic bags.
• March 2019: Mexico City starts to ban plastic bags at retail shops.
• April 2019: The Flemish Government approves further provisions on the plastic bags ban in Belgium.
• May 2019: Nigeria’s House of Representatives passes a bill banning the use, manufacture, import and sale of plastic bags.
• May 2019: The parliament of Iceland agrees on a ban of plastic bags starting 2021.
• In Kazakhstan, amendments to the Environmental Code concerning plastic bags ban are likely to be adopted by December 2019.

Please do not hesitate to make use of 1cc’s global expertise in the field of waste and product compliance.