A recent study reveals Cypriot shoppers use an alarming amount of plastic bags says NAOMI LEACH
Be honest. Do you think twice when you get to a shop counter and the assistant bags up your goods, takes your money and waves you on your way? If you do it’s more likely to be buyer’s regret about the price than a serious consideration of what material your shopping bags are made of.
If you live in Cyprus, you are likely to pick up an average of three plastic bags a day. That’s an unbelievable half a million plastic bags being consumed in Cyprus daily. These shocking findings were unveiled this week in the Consumer Habits Survey conducted by the Europrism Research Centre in Cyprus.
“If you take into account three bags per person, then per household on a daily basis, it is a huge number. Many people don’t know about the existence of reusable bags,” says Charalambos Karayiannaki, Research Fellow at the Europrism Research Centre and one of the authors of the report.
Shoppers’ carelessly high consumption of plastic bags has dramatic environmental and economic implications. Recycling a plastic bag will cost more than producing a new one, which exacerbates the issue. Instead plastic bags contribute to the landfill waste mountains which when burned produce toxic gas emissions. These emissions can linger in the atmosphere for two to 20 years. Plastic bags are also directly responsible for the death of many marine animals when they eat them.
“It kills marine animals. The plastic bag takes longer to degrade than the animal so you see the body of the dead animal and inside you can see the plastic,” says Charalambos.
The report outlines litter as “one of the greatest problems in modern societies, making imperious the need for an immediate reaction from policy makers to tackle or mitigate these failures.”
The use of reusable bags made of fabric rather than plastic has been encouraged in developed countries across the world for the past few years, but in Cyprus it is still the minority of consumers who choose reusable bags over plastic.
Overseas governments impose levies on the cost of plastic bags to target complacency and deter customers from using them. Revenue generated from charging for plastic bags is then pumped into the promotion of green practices and to advertise the alternative reusable bags. In Ireland, a tax on the consumption with a 15 cents charge per bag has decreased the annual consumption of bags by 90 per cent. So why is Cyprus lagging behind other countries when it comes to changing shopping habits?
“Like most Mediterranean countries, laws for recycling have only been introduced recently. If they introduce a levy or tax on plastic bags in Cyprus it would be a good policy because people will realise that they have a responsibility to the environment and hold for a second and think ‘shall I take that bag or not?’” explains Charalambos.
In the report, the research centre found that 70 per cent of shoppers would accept paying a small fee, such as 10 to 15 cents, for a plastic bag but only 51 per cent had bought a reusable bag. Charalambos says they found that people would even be willing to spend 80 to 90 per cent more for a bag.
The report surmises “It seems that while the Cypriot consumers have been consistently in favour of environmental protection however, at the same time they have shown an unwillingness to take responsibility when it comes to their own actions.”
If our government chooses to adopt measures to address plastic bag consumption, such as a tax like other countries in Europe then we may see a change in shopping habits. But one problem environmentally aware shoppers may encounter in Cyprus is finding re-usable bags, as not all of the big supermarkets actively promote or stock them.
Until these changes are in place, by shopping consciously and rejecting plastic bags at the check out, consumers could make the individual difference. After all three bags a day adds up.
