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Same in France, the stores starting charging for plastic bags (even before the gov introduced a tax) in the early 2000s, and it dropped to 800 millions back in
by vmarsy 9y ago
Same in France, the stores starting charging for plastic bags (even before the gov introduced a tax) in the early 2000s, and it dropped to 800 millions back in 2010, from 15 billion in 2003.[1][2] Since 2016 they're completely banned.
Glad to see that more countries took similar easy steps.
The E.U. is forcing every member country charge for those bags by the end of 2018, and to make sure on average people use less than 90 bags per person per year by end of 2019.
For comparison, Danish and Finnish use only 4, France 80, and Portuguese 400+ [3]
[1] http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2013/01/03/l-interdiction-des-sacs-en-plastique-se-mondialise_1812467_3244.html http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2013/01/03/l-interdict...
[2] https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2003/12/04/202430-la-chasse-aux-sacs-plastiques-est-lancee.html https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2003/12/04/202430-la-chasse...
[3] http://www.liberation.fr/france/2016/06/25/sacs-plastique-ce-qui-devient-interdit-ce-qui-va-etre-disponible_1462004 http://www.liberation.fr/france/2016/06/25/sacs-plastique-ce...
- Baeocystin 9y agoThe number of bags used drop is significant, but I wonder how much the volume of plastic used has changed? This is an honest question. I am genuinely curious. Here in California, for example, the 10 cent bags you now pay for are much more robust than the cheap freebies of before, but also clearly use more material in their construction. I would estimate at least 5x-10x the mass per bag of the previous free ones. (I much prefer the newer system, FWIW. The stronger bags are much more useful around the home, too.)
- redthrow 9y agoThe economist Bryan Caplan wrote about the topic here: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/01/californias_gre.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/01/californias_gre....
- Baeocystin 9y agoInteresting read, thanks for the link.