No plastic bags day on Saturdays in Farmers' Markets from April

PUTRAJAYA: From April, customers going to the Farmers' Markets nationwide on Saturdays will have to take their own carry bags or pay 20sen for plastic bags.

The Domestic Trade, Cooperative and Consumerism Ministry would launch the second phase of its “No Plastic Bag Day” this April to help reduce the use of plastic bags which end up clogging landfills, said its deputy minister Datuk Rohani Abdul Karim.

The first phase of the campaign was launched nationwide at the beginning of the year and targeted hypermarkets, supermarkets, mini-markets and grocery stores.

She said the second phase would be launched at the farmers' market in Putrajaya and slowly expanded to markets all over the country.

“We have already started discussing the move with Federal Agriculture and Marketing Authority (which manages farmer’s markets) and other bodies representing traders to ensure they understand why they should support the campaign,” she told a press conference after launching a new 99Speedmart outlet here Saturday.

However, the ministry would not make it mandatory for traders to join the campaign but use a softer approach involving educating traders and consumers on the need to reduce the use the plastic bags.

She said the ministry preferred getting traders and outlets join the campaign voluntarily as this made them more committed.

Making it mandatory, she said, would involve enforcement exercises and the large number of markets or outlets involved would make monitoring difficult.

“We are also working hard to educate the public on the need to preserve the environment by reducing the use of plastic bags in the hope that they will reduce the demand for plastic bags by carrying reusable bags whenever they go shopping,” she said.

On the progress of the first phase of the campaign, Rohani said two of the five hypermarkets in the country had already successfully met the target of reducing the use of plastic bags by 10% by the end of this year while progress at the other three was encouraging.

She said Petronas stations around the country had also recorded a drop of plastic bags used while participation from smaller establishments like supermarkets, mini-markets and grocery shops was also growing.

She said the ministry was currently also working on convincing business operators to use bio-degradable plastic bags in the hope that this would reduce the amount of the normal plastic bags, which could stay intact for 100-years or more, from ending up in landfills.

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