ST Nov 29, 2006
Charge for plastic bags? NEA prefers education
I REFER to the letter, 'Start charging for plastic bags' (ST, Nov 23).
Last year, the National Environment Agency worked with the major supermarkets and the Singapore Environment Council on possible measures to curb the excessive use of plastic shopping bags.
It was agreed that we should first adopt an educational approach to encourage the public to cut down on their use, before considering more drastic measures like charging for plastic bags.
Hence, the 'Why waste plastic bags? Use reusable bags!' campaign was launched in February, to persuade shoppers to use reusable bags so as to avoid collecting more plastic bags than needed.
We acknowledge that this is a long-term process and have been organising follow-up activities, including the 'Spot the green shoppers' contest over the weekend of Nov 18 and 19, to reinforce the message of resource conservation.
If the campaign succeeds in convincing Singaporeans to switch to reusable bags, it would then not be necessary to consider imposing a charge for the use of plastic bags.
Vincent Teo
Chief Engineer
Resource Conservation Dept
National Environment Agency
I don’t see the point of encouraging people using reusable bags for their shopping. I agreed with Vincent that education is the way to go.
Personally I NEED these plastic bags to hold my trash at home.
If the supermarkets stop providing plastic bags, then I will need to buy my own trash bags. Isn’t this being more non-environmental friendly?
3 comments:
This is the usual PAP style of quick fix solution to a problem. Make them pay! haha
Mr Chan writes:
now they talk abt using less bags. Plllleeeeeaaasssee...in that case, go hang that stupid smart alek who came up with the idea of central bins in the HDB flats.....at least if the bins are located in people's own house, they can still dump items without bagging them...Nowadays without bagging, its still ok cos they use machines now to clear the rubbish dump and not those workers' bare hands....
I think the person must be some HDB scholar who live in private house all his life...haha.. Remember the Elite had detached from the peasant.
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