Yet another quick solution

ST Forum
April 25, 2007
Some suggestions on how we can achieve a plastic bag-free society

WE HAVE been talking about using fewer plastic bags to help save the environment for sometime now and we have finally put words into action by declaring every first Wednesday of the month as Bring Your Own Bag day.

In addition, some participating stores are also starting to charge the customers 10 cents per plastic bag. A good start but not enough if you are hoping that it will be a stunning success eventually.

In fact, I find this half-hearted effort is doomed to fail in the long run - the reason being that it is too much a hassle for affluent Singaporeans to remember to bring their reusable bags on every first Wednesday of the month in order to save a few cents.

I have some suggestions.

>>Instead of charging 10 cents, why not charge the customer $1 for the reusable bag which can be refunded if he returns it on his next shopping trip.

>>If he forgets, charge him another $1 for another reusable bag. He can also accumulate up to five bags and use them in exchange for goods bought.

>>It is more palatable for customers to pay if they know that no extra charge will be incurred at the end of the day as long as they cooperate and make the system work. The customers must also be told that the bags must be returned in good condition for reuse.

>>We can start off this scheme by getting all the major supermarkets to come together to agree that they charge the same price for each reusable bag and that they can be returned for a refund at all participating outlets.

If we can produce Newater, I have no doubt we can be equally successful in making Singapore a plastic bag-free society and in our own small way help to save the environment.

John Voon Zoon Choong


The talk of the town in Singapore is going plactic bags free.

We see several ass kisser supporting this move to “save the Earth”

Let me paint you a scenario, Mrs Tua JuaLong, stays somewhere in Tampines and she use to take a bus to IKEA Tampine to make her purchase. However after IKEA start to charge $0.10 for each plastic bag, Mrs Tua decided it will not be economical if she keep being charge is she need to purchase several item. So she decided to DRIVE to IKEA instead, this way she can go completely plastic-bags-less as she only need to put the IKEA cart to the car park, dump everything into her car boot and drive home.

Plastic Bag 1
Emission 0

Now how environment friendly is that?

What I am saying is that there are much much more needed to be done to really make Singapore an environment friendly country. We should be work more on education and have a efficient re-cycling system.

I am using plastic bags to line my dustbin and in a way I am re-cycling them.

If there are no free plastic bags available in the future. I still need to BUY MORE PLACTIC BAGS to line my dustbin if the waste disposal method remains the same.

Why is this harping on charging customer plastic bags? This is not tackling the root cause of the problem but only a quick way of making “grocery” plastic bags consumption go down. But soon we will see sales of dustbin plastic bags going up….