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SINGAPORE: First it was the "Bring Your Own Bag Day" initiative, now retailer IKEA has stopped providing free plastic bags.
It is charging 5 or 10 cents depending on the size of the bag, with the money going to fund education programmes on the environment.
Reusable bags cost $1.20, down from the usual $2.90 and as of Sunday afternoon, more than 700 reusable bags and almost 250 plastic bags had been sold.
The aim is to cut down the number of plastic bags used in the next year by about a third, from 5.5 million to 4 million.
Most shoppers welcomed the move but not all were prepared.
"We still do not know and are not used to having the charge. After a while people will know to bring their own bags," says one customer.
"I think they should charge more than that…because people shouldn't keep using plastic bags and throwing them away and buying new ones. They should be buying these and come prepared for their shopping," says another.
Money from the sale of the bags will go towards environmental education and awareness efforts.
Some of the funds will also be used for conservation field work in the Riau islands to tackle the haze problem.
"What we hope to do is to demonstrate a set of priorities, or set of initiatives that could bring a reduction in a certain area or certain community…we select Riau and benchmark it over the years of data that we have," says Fabian Foo, Managing Director, World Wildlife Fund.
The donations are based on the 4 million plastic bags IKEA predicts it is going to sell in the coming year and the price of the bags.
After tax, the average monthly donation would be about $18,500.
And this could go up, depending on how many plastic bags are saved in the scheme.
IKEA says it looked at similar programmes in the UK and US, before deciding to charge for plastic bags in Singapore.
"There's nothing commercial about this. In fact, it's almost anti-commercial, to not to give something away to the customer. And this way we force the issue of reduction of the use of plastic bags," says Philip Wee, General Manager, IKEA.
So the choice is clear - bring your own bag, buy a reusable one, or buy a plastic bag - all to help the environment. - CNA/yy
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