In Ukraine, the ban on environmentally harmful plastic bags turned out to be a complete profanation
A week has already passed since Ukrainian retail chains were prohibited from giving their customers free thin plastic bags, which are usually used to pack vegetables, fruits or milk.
Now everyone who wants to shop at the supermarket will have to pay for the used package, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The government has not yet approved the minimum cost of such packaging, so stores set prices on their own. Now one such package in various retail chains costs from ten kopecks. At the market, most sellers still give away harmful plastic packaging for free. Few people there have heard about the new law.
Such a ban was not established in vain - if one European uses less than a hundred such packages per year, then a Ukrainian needs at least five hundred per year. Europe has already introduced various types of bans and fines, the main purpose of which is to reduce environmental damage. Ukraine once again decided to copy the European experience.
Many buyers evaluate such an initiative critically. “I can afford to buy bags for my purchases, these pennies won’t make a difference for me.”,” noted a visitor to one of the large Kyiv supermarkets. Others believe that against the general background of the constant rise in food prices, these costs are completely unnoticeable. “If we banned plastic altogether, there would be an effect, but now there is almost none”, said another buyer.
Experts also share a similar opinion. Thus, Sergei Volkov, a waste management specialist, believes that the packages have actually always been paid. Their cost was included in the total price of the product. "No free goods", he emphasizes. And the effectiveness of the initiative itself is questionable. It cannot be assumed that giving up thin plastic bags will save the environment, given that the country still does not have a working waste recycling mechanism. A significant part of it - about 90% - simply ends up in a landfill.
The supermarkets themselves do not take this measure seriously. So, instead of plastic bags, they offer customers string bags made of the same material. At the same time, the legal requirements to ban plastic bags are formally met. The initiator of the law on restricting the use of plastic bags, member of the board of the Office for Effective Regulation, Alexey Orzhel, also faced such profanation.
“Alternatives offered by stores must be environmentally friendly. You cannot take the same plastic bag, shape it into a different shape and then sell it or give it away to customers for free,” he said.
Obviously, it will be difficult for Ukraine to adopt European practices in the field of environmental protection. It is difficult to say whether this is due to imperfect legislation or the “creativity” of traders.
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