Singaporean retailer extends plastic-bag-charging drive for one year

VNA 07/11/2019 07:59

The supermarket chain FairPrice, a cooperative of the of Singapore’s National Trades Union Congress, will extend its "no plastic bag" drive to 25 outlets for one year starting November 11.

At a supermarket in Singapore (Source: https://www.straitstimes.com)

The extension follows a month-long trial it conducted from September 16 to October 16 at seven outlets.

Under the programme, shoppers have to pay SGD0.2 (US$0.15) for plastic bags per transaction at the FairPrice, FairPrice Finest and FairPrice Extra stores, and SGD 0.1 ($0.07) at the Cheers and FairPrice Xpress outlets.

FairPrice Group CEO Seah Kian Peng said the total fees worth about SGD 19,000 ($13,986) collected from the trial will be donated to the Singapore Children’s Society and The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund.

The company’s related interview-based survey of 1,745 customers revealed that 73 percent of the respondents support its initiative.

According to a 2018 survey of more than 1,000 people online by the Singapore Environment Council, Singaporeans used at least 1.76 billion plastic items a year, of which about 820 million plastic bags were taken from supermarkets.