Environment : Rewe to stop using plastic bags

COLOGNE In a bold step, supermarket giant Rewe has announced it will phase out plastic bags completely.

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Germany’s second largest supermarket chain, Rewe, will stop using plastic bags. Currently, customers have to pay for the plastic bags but this will be phased out altogether. The supermarket giant said this will save Germany from 140 million plastic bags landing in the garbage every year.

At the end of April, around 260 businesses had agreed to charge a fee for the environmentally damaging plastic bags, and in this way reduce the number used. Rewe took this a step further by announcing the ban on plastic bags altogether. Currently, the average person in Germany uses 71 plastic bags a year. This is well under the European Union (EU) goal of 90 plastic bags per person by 2019. By 2025, the EU guideline calls for no more than 40 plastic bags per resident.

Rewe will offer customers alternative bags made of cotton or burlap. They will also offer re-usable bags made from recycled materials, boxes or paper bags. They will sell out the plastic bags they have on stock until they run out in July. Around 27 million customers shop at over 3,000 Rewe supermarkets every week.

A three-month test phase was carried out at 130 supermarkets and according to Rewe, the majority of the customers were accepting of the change. Nearly two thirds of those surveyed said they wanted to switch to re-useable bags or cartons. Not affected are the clear, small plastic bags used for vegetables and fruits. Alternatives are being sought for those bags, however.