Limited plastic, green plastic, super merchant, coffee bag, you have to pay for it.

EPA limits the inclusion of biodegradable plastics, and coffee bags will not be available free of charge in the future. (photo by Wang Yushu)

With the expansion of plastic restrictions on the road next year, the EPD said today that this amendment removes the control on the material categories of plastic bags for shopping, and the "biodegradable plastic" thin bags given by the current supermarket coffee can no longer be provided free of charge in the future.

But this has led to a backlash from biodegradable industries, saying that the green plastic, made of biomaterials such as corn and starch, is widely used in thin coffee bags for supermarkets, which consumes 400 million bags a year with the family's two leading supermarkets.

Wang Shunhong, project manager of Hongli biochemical Technology Co., Ltd., is dissatisfied that their products have received environmental protection stamps and can be broken down half a year later, but now they are treated as the same specifications as PVC and PE. "but the EPA has never come up with a specific theory to prove why it is necessary to include biodegradable plastics, which is a strangulation to the biodegradable industry! "

A few days ago, the EPD announced the expansion of the plastic restriction policy, increasing the scope of control from the current seven categories to 14 categories, including drugstores (beauty and pharmacy), books and stationery retailers, laundries, beverage shops, West Point bakeries, and so on. Today, the EPD held a second public hearing to listen to the views of all sectors of the community.

In addition to the addition of control objects in this amendment, the original conditions of "plastic bag material" and "0.06 mm thickness" have also been abolished. in the future, as long as they are plastic bags for shopping, they will be included regardless of material or thickness. At present, there are only 4p in the limited use of plastic bags for shopping, that is, polyethylene PE, polypropylene PP, polystyrene PS, polyvinyl chloride PVC.

However, this wave of plastic restrictions on the use of goods, fish and fruits and other fresh food, factory packaging products, medical bags these four categories are excluded. It means that people can buy tea eggs, cooked food and rice bags in supermarkets, or they can still have free plastic bags to use.

The Guardian Taiwan Association and other ring groups think that there are too few objects of control, and ask the Environmental Protection Agency to take care of restaurants, clothing shops, and snack bars in the next wave. The director of the Greenpeace Ocean Project, Luo Yi, suggested that there are a wide variety of plastic bags, and the EPD should work with the channel to increase recycling sites to encourage consumers to reuse them.