A month after the 50-cent bag levy came into effect, a green group has raised awareness about another source of waste: plastic umbrella bags.
The long, transparent plastic bags are placed outside shopping malls on rainy days for people to use and keep the floors inside dry.
Most people do not usually bring a bag for their umbrellas, a Greeners Action survey found: 77 per cent use the bags placed outside malls and most do not reuse them.
Of the 809 people interviewed last month, 72 per cent said they took one umbrella bag on a rainy day and 5 per cent said they took two.
Some 62 per cent of those polled threw the bags away after using them once, 21 per cent reused them and 13 per cent recycled them by putting them in a recycling bin.
Since the 50-cent levy on plastic bags came into effect on July 7, around 80 per cent of shoppers had been taking their own bags, the Retail Management Association said.