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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mexico City’s new ban
on plastic bags has inspired visions of a journey back in time even as local
makers of the packaging worry they could become obsolete, said Reuters.
The
city’s government this week banned single-use plastic bags to complement
worldwide efforts to protect the environment, sparking protests from companies
that produce them. "We have to take plastic out of circulation,” said Andree
Lilian Guigue, the official overseeing the ban in Mexico City, one of the
world’s biggest metropolises. “Plastic and other waste products that damage the
planet end up in the ravines, woods and public spaces of the city - and nobody
cleans it up."
The ban that began Jan. 1 prohibits the sale or
distribution of the bags pervasive everywhere from Walmart to corner
shops.
Plastics industry association ANIPAC says the roughly 20 million
people who live in Mexico City and its sprawl use about 68,000 tons of bags a
year. Fines for plastic offenders could range from 42,000 pesos (USD2,219) to
170,000 pesos.
Gabriel Sanchez, who hawks produce at a marketplace, said
the ban was a return to 1960s packaging. "Now we’re going back to paper bags,
sacks, baskets,” he said. “I think it will take a while but people will get used
to it."
Firms including Walmart's Mexico unit WALMEX.MX, breadmaker Bimbo
BIMBOA.MX and conglomerate Femsa FEMSAUBD.MX agreed to offer free reusable bags
this month and explore more ways to reduce plastic packaging.
Plastic
producers say the plan will hurt an industry already struggling to adjust to a
patchwork of reforms across Mexico, and are lobbying lawmakers to enact a
federal law that would standardize rules and allow reusable, thicker bags. "The
solution should be regulating bags, not prohibiting them," said Aldimir Torres,
president of ANIPAC, which registers 141 plastic bag producers in Mexico
City.
Nationwide the industry generates about USD30 billion a year, but
it shrunk in 2019, partially due to plastic bans in various cities. Mexico City
thinks the solution could be compostable bags, which easily break
down.
But Jose del Cueto, spokesman of Inboplast, an association of
companies that make more environmentally-friendly bags, says that would require
costly imported materials. He wants the city to take after California, which
banned single-use bags in 2014, but allows multiple-use plastic
bags.
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE
imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and
reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the
greatest reduction in imports. |
