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EU to halve plastic bag use by 2019
April 29, 2015
EU to halve plastic bag use by 2019
The European Parliament passed a law on 28 April to drastically cut down on single-use plastic bags. EurActiv France reports.
Single-use plastic bags could soon become a thing of the past in European supermarkets. On Tuesday (28 April), MEPs approved the final version of a text drastically limiting the use of plastic bags in EU member states.
These bags, which are often only used once, are a scourge on the environment, take several centuries to degrade and are particularly harmful to marine ecosystems.
Around eight billion of these bags end up polluting the European environment every year, according to estimates.
Limits in 2019 and 2025
Gilles Parneaux, a Socialist Party MEP, said that in France alone "an estimated 122 million plastic bags pollute 5,000 kilometres of coast".
The new law requires member states to progressively reduce their use of plastic bags, with an initial threshold of 90 bags per person per year by 2019, followed by 40 bags in 2025. Certain countries like Hungary, Portugal and Poland and heavy plastic bag users and will have to make radical changes in order to comply with these limits.
At the other end of the scale, some EU member states like Finland and Luxembourg already find themselves on the right side of the future limits. With an average consumption of 79 plastic bags per person per year, France is already well below the first threshold.
Read more at EuActive.
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