Have you got used to carrying your own shopping bag to the market? Looks like many shoppers have started doing that ever since the Ministry of Environment and Forests launched the go-green initiative a few months ago, which disallows giving away free plastic bags to customers.
The February 4, 2011 notification of the Ministry of Environment and Forests says,
“ 10. Explicit pricing of carry bags.-
No carry bags shall be made available free of cost by retailers to consumers. The concerned
municipal authority may by notification determine the minimum price for carry bags
depending upon their quality and size which covers their material and waste management
costs in order to encourage their re-use so as to minimize plastic waste generation. “
In Belgaum too the retails chains like Big Bazar, More, Trends are charging for carry bags anywhere between Rs.1 to Rs.3. This trend has not yet come into the regular market.
The Retailers Association of India (RAI), which has enforced the rule for all its members, and there has been a reduction of 56% in the usage of plastic bags ever since shops started charging extra for them.
There has been a mixed response to this from the public, a few feel this is another way to make more money while others feel that as one would be charged they would just take one bag instead of asking for a couple as they did earlier.
The price of the bags needs to be fixed by the City Corporation, but we dont know whether our our Belgaum city corporation is even aware of any such kind of a notification.
The Retailers Association of India (RAI) has fixed the following prices for bags for its members:
For Hypermarket / Supermarket (Value Retail)
- Re 1/- Bag to hold 2 kgs
- Rs 2/- Bag to hold 3 kgs
- Rs 3/- Bag to hold 5 kgs
- Rs 4/- Bag to hold 10 kgs
For Departmental stores / lifestyle category
- Small Bag Rs 3/-
- Medium Bag Rs 5/-
- Large Bags Rs 7/
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This is already in practice here in Bangalore… I am not sure if the use of plastic bags has come down and I have seen people happily paying the extra buck.
I made the change to reusable bags. The hard part was remembering to bring them with me when I go to the supermarket.
Come on Belgaum!!! Great Job!
haha… then Big Bazar will say buy bags from here and take home… 😉
Big Bazaar and Reliance Fresh have started charging as above, in Belgaum.
Good Move 🙂
i support it
Its a good move.In Mumbai after this movement the use of plastic bag has dropped by almost 54 %. Let us start in Belgaum also and start using eco friendly bags.