Shopping Bag

Malaysia has always lagging far behind other countries in minimizing the plastic bag usage. We have long seen many western countries restricting the plastic bag usage by making the shoppers paid for plastic bags. The citizen in these countries are also well educated to carry their own bags during shopping.

With the increase of the public awareness in preserving the environment, we begin to see slight progress in our country for this. Penang has successfully implemented the “no plastic bag on Monday” campaign in July 09 and the public response is overwhelming. Some hypermarkets such as Tesco and Jusco have also geared up their efforts in educating the public on this. Similar campaign is also planned in Selangor state for charging consumers for plastic bag on Saturday commencing from 2010. While this may be seen as a drop in the ocean, the efforts, nevertheless, mark a good start for the Malaysian to show their appreciations and cares for the mother nature.

While it is impossible to eliminate the plastic bag usage entirely, I have actually attempted to use reusable clothe bags for shopping in the last one year. It appears at the beginning to be a little “awkward” for a man like me to carry the bags for shopping. The uneasiness feeling eases overtime and it has now become awkward for me to use plastic bags for shopping.

My Shopping Bags

Another possible measure is to encourage the use of recycle container for the mineral water and beverages. In Germany for example, a deposit on the containers (cans, single-use glass and plastic bottles) is collected from the consumers when the beverage such as mineral water, etc is sold. It is therefore a common practice for the consumers to return the containers to an authorized redemption center, or the original seller to obtain the refund of deposit.