The artful dodgers of Bring Your Own Bag Day

Some baulk at 10-cent donation for plastic bags; some won't shop, others get plastic bags elsewhere
Shuli Sudderuddin, Straits Times 15 Jun 08;

Housewife Winnie Loh, 52, was on her way to Prime supermarket in Tampines last Wednesday when she made an abrupt U-turn.

She had forgotten that it was Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) Day.

'I forgot to take my bag and I think 10 cents is too expensive a donation to make for a thin plastic bag. I'll just come back tomorrow,' she said.

A Sunday Times check of 20 supermarkets and 100 customers islandwide last Wednesday found that 50 per cent of the shoppers came without a bag.

Twenty per cent of the customers bought fewer items or decided not to shop when they realised that it was BYOB Day.

But supermarket chains told The Sunday Times that there had been no adverse impact on their sales because of BYOB Day.

Mr Seah Kian Peng, the managing director (Singapore) for NTUC FairPrice, said that many customers had responded positively. He noted that since the campaign was launched, plastic bag use had dropped by over 12 per cent.

Supermarkets did not want to reveal their savings from the reduced use of plastic bags.

BYOB Day was started in April last year to address the issue of the excessive use of plastic bags: 2.5 billion of them are disposed of annually.

Run by the Singapore Environment Council, the programme involves supermarket chains such as FairPrice, Cold Storage and Giant. They encourage shoppers to donate 10 cents for each plastic bag used. Supermarkets said the cost of each bag ranges from one to five cents depending on its size.

The SEC said that, as of December last year, it had collected roughly $80,000 from the BYOB Day scheme. The money is used to fund environmental programmes.

Although BYOB Day was initially slated for the first Wednesday of each month, it has been held every Wednesday from June 4 to make it easier for consumers to remember the date.

But it seems it will still take some work to get everyone to support the scheme.

As a spokesman for Sheng Siong supermarket said: 'A very small proportion of customers refuse to accept the BYOB scheme as most of them are not aware of the programme or of environmental protection.'

Ms S.L. Ong, a private tutor in her late 40s, feels that BYOB Day is unfair. 'Everything has already increased in price and GST is so high. The provision of plastic bags should be a service, not something that supermarkets charge for,' she said.

Ms Cindy Neo, 37, who works in Luck Hup Chai trading minimarket next to Prime supermarket in Tampines, said that her customers buy small items on Wednesdays and then ask for big plastic bags. They then go to Prime to shop.

A check with 20 supermarket cashiers revealed that they sometimes experienced customer displeasure although the donation was not compulsory.

Ms Chong Pei Shan, 30, a cashier at Giant in Tampines, said: 'A man came last Wednesday with many items but, when I told him it was BYOB Day, he walked away leaving everything behind.'

But at least one company here has had success in making people pay for plastic bags. A spokesman for home furnishings company Ikea said that, after it started charging for bags last year, usage dropped by 85 per cent almost immediately. The reduction has remained strong at 80 per cent.

Can supermarkets follow in Ikea's footsteps?

Said Mr Poh Tang Seng, a manager at FairPrice's Bukit Batok MRT branch: 'You just can't force people to pay or they will walk away and not come to the supermarket any more.'

Additional reporting by Carmen Onggo, Alvin Lim and Gabriel Yue