Bagging It Up

Plastic bags are choking our city. According to government statistics, 8 billion plastic bags get dumped in our landfills each year. That’s more than a thousand bags per person, far more than in most other developed countries. To combat this problem, the government has recently introduced a levy on plastic bags. That’s a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.

What We’re Doing

Following similar initiatives in Ireland and Taiwan, the government’s recently proposed “producer responsibility scheme” will impose a levy of 50 cents on each plastic bag (both non-biodegradable and biodegradable bags). The aim is to make the average consumer aware of their plastic bag consumption and thereby reduce wastefulness, while also incentivizing a switch to reusable shopping bags. Initially, however, the levy will apply only to supermarkets, convenience stores, and health and beauty stores – a mere four percent of retail outlets, and only 20 percent of our plastic bag suppliers, according to a recent government survey. But the government hopes for a 50 percent drop in plastic bags used at these outlets (which should translate to about 1 billion fewer bags a year). A future review will be held to see if it could be expanded to other retail outlets.

While a blanket levy on all retail outlets from the start was deemed “unfeasible,” Jasmine Hui at Park N' Shop doesn’t see it that way: “We think that better results could be achieved if this initiative is implemented to a greater extent. Given the fact that supermarkets only contribute to a small percentage of the plastic bag issue, the levy should be across-the-board.”

The scheme isn’t without its detractors, many of them in the bag trade, naturally. Rickly Wong, Executive Vice President of the Hong Kong Plastic Bags Manufacturing Association, argues that a levy on plastic bags would simply shift consumption towards other types of bags and containers, whose subsequent overabundance would prove equally hazardous to the environment.

Why Not Just Ban Them All?

Since San Francisco banned non-biodegradable plastic bags this March, it has become fashionable around the world to institute other similar bans, with Paris, Mumbai and South Africa all enforcing similar schemes.

“The legislation [in San Francisco] requires grocery bags distributed within San Francisco to be made of fully biodegradable material,” says Darby Hoover of San Francisco’s Natural Resources Defense Council. “Supermarkets will have to start offering recyclable paper or biodegradable plastic bags by September; pharmacies will have a year; mom and pop markets won’t have to comply.”

Our Hong Kong levy will affect a similar group. But the one San Francisco councilman who voted against their ban, Ed Jew, says, “We’re only punishing the big stores, but how many bags do they use compared to the other 95,000 small businesses? Mom and pop grocery stores use 1,000 or 2,000 bags in a day. It’s those little bags that contaminate, and they’re in the millions.”

So, to get rid of all of our non-biodegradable bags, should we do the same as San Fran? The short answer is, kind of – the problem with their ban is it was too hasty. As Jew says, “[San Francisco] needs more time to plan out a switch to non-biodegradable bags. That’s because biodegradable and non-biodegradable bags have different chemical compositions, and they can’t be recycled together,” says Jew. “I’ve talked to garbage departments – I’ve asked them if they are going to go through it all and separate the two types. It’s impossible. Instead of being recycled, they’re all going straight to the landfill.”

San Francisco’s three-year difference between a levy and a ban isn’t adequate time to make the switch from non-biodegradable bags to biodegradable ones. And so if we act too quickly, like that, then we’ll be left with no recycling of bags at all.