Plastic bag initiative to be launched later this year

Starting May 1st there will be a 20 cents deterrent fee added to plastic bags at stores as a way to reduce the number of plastic bags in circulation.

This was revealed to the media by Kammie Holder, Advocacy Director of Future Centre Trust recently at the Accra Beach Hotel and Spa. Holder called it the “Plastic Bag Initiative” and said that he found it was an initiative that everyone should embrace as it will ultimately help our environment.

Holder revealed that over 100 million plastic bags are used by persons every year and these plastic bags sometimes end up clogging our drains, in the oceans, our landfills and on the floor where mosquitoes then use the accumulated water to lay their eggs and affect our health. He went on to say that plastic bags contain Bisphenol A that can ultimately disrupt our hormones and explained that over time this accumulation causes us to end up with various ailments. On top of that, he divulged that the plastic bags sometimes end up in our oceans and kill the fish by the reef.

He said that the trend now in other parts of the world such as California, New York and England is to either charge shoppers with a deterrent fee or not distribute plastic bags to their shoppers. He commended the few places in Barbados that do not distribute plastic bags which causes their shoppers to use boxes or reusable shopping bags.

“I want to appeal to the supermarket owners. They have to embrace this idea and see it as a way to protecting our environment,” he said.

Holder said that this initiative is not to be seen as a move by the Government of Barbados, rather as a movement led by the civil society and expressed that persons should stop asking what the country may do for them but what they could do for the country. Charging consumers the extra 20 cents for plastic bags should be a way to help reduce the number of plastic bags in circulation. In the event that the 20 cent deterrent does not work, Holder is advocating for the deterrent fee to be raised from 20 cents to five or 10 dollars.