Day without plastic bags: where are we in their ban in the world?

Today is World Plastic Bag Free Day. ” What ? But I thought plastic bags were forbidden!? »… In France, yes. But this is not yet the case everywhere. So, a little overview.

A bag plastic single-use, it takes no more than a second to make. But it takes several hundred years to degrade. In the meantime, it will not have been used for more than a few tens of minutes. And will probably have taken a little trip through the digestive system of some innocent animal. Leading him to fairly certain death.

In France, plastic bags have been banned at checkouts since 1^er July 2016 already. Already ? Well, not really, because Bangladesh banned plastic bags in 2002. A first in the world. Because said bags were beginning to clog the systems of drainage from the country. In 2012, it was the turn of Haiti, which felt its coastline and its mangroves threatened. A number of islands had followed suit.

But in some countries things were — and sometimes still are — more complicated. Denmark, for example, chose to tax checkout bags in 1994. But it took until 2021 for the country to ban it. Japan, on the other hand, is still struggling with its plastic addiction. There, checkout bags have simply been paid for since 2020, and for the modest sum of 3 euro cents. Charging for plastic bags has also just come into force in Dubai.

Towards an international agreement?

In the United States, the situation is even more complex. There are states that have banned the use of plastic bags. California, for example. New Jersey even recently voted to ban all single-use bags — including paper ones. Even though the pandemic of coronavirus had the effect collateral to increase their use. Plastic lobbyists accusing multi-use bags of being breeding grounds for the virus. But other states have simply banned… to ban plastic bags. This is the case of Missouri, for example.

Today, the majority of countries have adopted prohibition measures. Some 115 in total. Sometimes with some difficulty in setting up application. In Kenya, for example, where the ban on single-use plastic bags is perhaps the strictest in the world. It came into force in 2017 and generated a real contraband market.

Because the rules, ultimately, differ from one country to another. Some allow, for example, plastic bags of more than 50 micrometers thick. This is the case of France. Others have set the bar at 40 micrometers. This is why more and more States are now calling for the signing of a global treaty. Several of them have begun to discuss the terms.