UAE | Environment

It seems plastic is not so fantastic, after all

You may want to think about bringing your own bags to the supermarket or when doing your Eid or Christmas shopping, as checkout attendants may soon no longer be providing you with any.

  • By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 22:59 December 18, 2007
  • Gulf News

  • Supermarket packers are being trained to offer fewer plastic bags when packing shopping at checkouts and encourage customers to use alternative bags.
  • Image Credit: Supplied picture

Dubai: You may want to think about bringing your own bags to the supermarket or when doing your Eid or Christmas shopping, as checkout attendants may soon no longer be providing you with any.

Supermarket packers are being trained to offer fewer plastic bags when packing shopping at checkouts, as part of the My Bag My Earth campaign to reduce the use of plastic and introduce alternative bags.

Dubai Municipality and the International Association for Human Values (IAHV) recently announced the Green Shopper awards, which will reward stores that take steps to reduce the number of plastic bags used.

The latest initiative proposed by the IAHV is ACT - Ask, Congratulate and Train - for supermarket managers to voluntarily work with checkout packers.

"Packers need to Ask shoppers if they want another bag or if they need bags at all. Shoppers should be Congratulated if they bring their own bags or refuse bags. Train is for the packers to know why it is important to reduce the amount of plastic in our environment," said Sandhya Prakash, a volunteer at IAHV and one of the people working for the My Bag My Earth campaign.

"It's simple to implement and easy to educate check-out staff in just 15 minutes. This will hopefully work towards creating that shift in people's minds," she said.

Go for jute

An alternative to plastic is bags made from vegetable fibre such as jute. Currently more than five million jute bags made in India are waiting to be distributed for sale in UAE outlets, according to one of the world's largest producers of jute.

The Kolkata-based Kankaria Group creates bags of all shapes and sizes from a factory which has four jute mills and one cotton mill. Ashish Parmar, Dubai representative of the Kankaria Group, said jute bags were made essentially as food-grade bags for spices, coffee or beans, but the production of jute has grown phenomenally.

"Supermarkets have to be part and parcel of the process to eliminate plastic. Some countries will be applying a total ban in plastics and in the UAE, using jute is the first step," said Parmar. "We want people to know there are alternatives to plastic bags and with some eco-branding, they can give stores a good image. With the Green Store Awards this will give them great exposure," he said.

From a commercial viewpoint, advertising on a jute bag makes sense as the lifespan of the reusable bag far outweighs that of a plastic bag, said Parmar. Kankaria plans to launch jute bags during the Dubai Shopping Festival next month.

Zayed University Environment Group is also launching a competition to design a fashionable jute bag that shopaholics will be proud to carry their purchases around in.


Your comments


The easiest way to reduce the amount of plastic bags being consumed in Dubai (and another way for shops to earn some extra money) would be to tag a price on plastic bags. As no one wants to pay extra, everyone will bring their own heavy-duty reusable bag(s) -- just as in supermarkets in Europe.
jodi
Delft,the Netherlads
Posted: December 19, 2007, 14:49

Plastic bags that are given to carry off what we purchase are later utilized for collecting garbage. If we don't get the bags upon shopping, we will have to buy them because we need the bags to remove garbage.
kate
Dubai,UAE
Posted: December 19, 2007, 14:40

Maybe the packers will, from now on, stop arguing with us when we insist on using the bags we bring and would also use fewer plastic bags when requested.
Maryam
Sharjah,UAE
Posted: December 19, 2007, 09:20

Congratulations! It is years that I fight with packers because I don't want all this bags and I use my own! Great initiative!
C. Kieser
Dubai,UAE
Posted: December 19, 2007, 08:38

It is an excellent idea to use less plastic. But how will shoppers who bring their own bags be able to use them when they are not permitted to enter supermarkets with any type of bag. Obviously, we need to come up with a new system that addresses this concern before the use of plastic bags is stopped.
Di
Dubai,UAE
Posted: December 19, 2007, 08:31

I have been using canvas bags to carry home groceries for a couple of years now. They are so much easier to lug groceries in than plastic bags. I have also started taking them with me when I shop for clothing, shoes etc. The initiative needs to be taken further as the retailers, too, are guilty of using plastic bags.
Bonnie Breton
Rochester,United States
Posted: December 19, 2007, 07:35

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