Fost Plus’ Post

⏳ Good news worth sharing: 4.7 billion fewer lightweight plastic bags in 2022! On November 12, Eurostat released new data highlighting that Member States have made significant progress in reducing their lightweight plastic carrier bag (LPCB) consumption. ✔️ The figures show that LPCB consumption decreased by 14% from 2021 to 2022 (10.8 bags per person), for a total of 29.8 billion bags consumed in 2022. This makes an average of 66.6 bags per person per year across the EU. 🌍However, this consumption varies between countries. Lithuania, Latvia, and Czechia have the highest per capita usage with 249, 193 and185 bags per person, while Belgium, Poland, and Portugal have the lowest with only, respectively, 4, 7 and 13 bags. How to explain this decrease ? In Europe, many countries, including France, Germany, Italy, have banned lightweight plastic bags. Other countries require consumers to pay a tax such as Danemark, Ireland or Belgium. Switzerland and Norway, allow the plastic industry to impose a “voluntary tax” on bag usage. These are levers that favor the first principle of circularity, "Reduction", but are not sufficient and could be accompanied with awareness measures on the impact of such product. ❌ Recently, Sweden made one step back and decided to abolish, starting November 1, 2024, the tax on plastic bags purchased at the checkout (around €0.26) which was introduce in May 2020. Let's keep using our reusable bag when shopping ;)