Supermarket scrap-free plastic bags – Northern Times

By the end of the year, most major Dutch supermarkets will stop distributing single-use plastic bags.

Lidl, Jumbo, Plus and Aldi have announced that they will stop offering regular plastic and paper bags, Algemene Dagblad, currently sold for fruits and vegetables. report.

Instead, customers can purchase more durable plastic bags or bring their own.

The announcement comes after retail giant Albert Hejn eliminated free plastic bags for fruits and vegetables in its stores, replacing them with 30-cent reusable nylon bags. Four supermarkets plan to phase out single-use bags within his 12 months, potentially preventing millions of plastic-packaged items from ending up in landfills and oceans.

“Consumers need to get used to it as quickly as possible, so it’s important that as many supermarket chains as possible participate,” Plastic Pact NL director Carlijn Röell told the outlet.

Retailers claim the ban will remove about 126 million plastic bags and 10 million paper bags from circulation each year. Lidl, which has 420 of his stores nationwide, plans to phase out single-use plastic bags after the summer. “We are currently choosing sustainable bags,” a spokesperson for the chain told the paper.

Jumbo, the Netherlands’ second largest supermarket chain with more than 700 stores, said it will start preparing for the transition in the coming months. Aldi, which has about 500 stores, plans to switch to reusable bags when the supply of single-use bags runs out.

The Dutch government introduced a ban on free lightweight shopping bags in 2016 to tackle single-use plastic pollution. The move reduced the use of plastic bags by 71%, according to to the media.