The Plastic Bag Ban in Chile

Chile was the first American country to ban plastic bags, preventing the manufacture of 5 billion bags since 2018.

There have been 2 stages. Stage One allows a maximum of 2 plastic bags per purchase. Stage 2 bans big chain stores from distributing plastic bags, with a 300USD fine if they are discovered otherwise. The last stage will ban bags in small businesses. Before this law was implemented, 3.4 billion bags were used each year. That would almost be 20000 tonnes of garbage from plastic bags alone every year! Chile continues to try to prevent the use of other single use plastics with different methods such as the Extended Producer Responsibility law. This law regulates packaging and containers along with raising the price of plastic utensils to discourage single use plastics in food establishments. These laws were first placed to stop the build up of ocean plastic and protect marine life. With this inspirational movement, the rest of the world will hopefully be influenced to follow Chile’s steps in preventing ocean plastics.

Credits:

Ross Brown. “Chile Becomes First American Country to Ban Plastic Bags in All Coastal Cities.” Chile News | Breaking News, Views, Analysis, 23 Sept. 2017, santiagotimes.cl/2017/09/23/chile-becomes-first-latin-american-country-to-ban-plastic-bags-in-all-coastal-cities/.