Taipei has failed to effectively promote second-use shopping and garbage bags (二次袋), hampering efforts to reduce plastic consumption, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Lin Shih-tsung (林世宗) said yesterday.
Taipei’s blue plastic garbage disposal bags are at the heart of efforts to encourage recycling. The bags have cut the city’s garbage volume by 68 percent over the past 10 years, according to Department of Environmental Protection statistics.
While previously the bags were only available for purchase in sealed packages of multiple bags, since January the government has permitted supermarkets and convenience stores to sell them individually as an alternative to purchasing ordinary plastic bags.
While the department originally estimated that 10 million of the new “second-use” plastic bags would be sold annually, only 760,000 bags have been sold so far this year, Lin said, adding that participating stores sold an average of only one bag every two days. He blamed the lack of progress on inadequate publicity about the policy, as well as foot-dragging on the part of the stores that agreed to carry the bags.
A survey conducted by the department found that the reusable bags were not readily available in almost 30 percent of supermarkets and convenience stores.
At one participating Pxmart (全聯福利中心) near Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Mingde (明德) station, none of the second-use bags were immediately available at the cashier’s desk and store records showed that none had been sold in the past three days.
“Many people already bring their own shopping bags from home,” said one cashier, who wished only to be identified by the surname Liu (劉), adding that the second-use bags are five times more expensive than ordinary bags.
Many customers interviewed exiting the store said that they were unaware that they could purchase the second-use bags.
A survey in June found that only 50 percent of city residents were aware of the policy.
“There is no upper limit to the extent one can publicize,” Department of Environmental Protection Assistant Commissioner Lu Shih-chang (盧世昌) said in response to Lin’s criticism, adding that the department cannot legally require firms to promote the second-use bags.
He said that plastic bags as a percentage of the city’s trash have fallen 37 percent this year, attributing the decline to residents increasingly using their own cloth shopping bags.
The second-use bags were originally intended only as a supplementary measure, to be used when people forgot to bring their regular cloth bags from home, he said.
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