Minister Oliver Dulić invited retail stores to use biodegradable bags

Today the Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning, Oliver Dulić, invited all retail stores to use biodegradable or multi-purpose bags instead of plastic ones.

He called upon the retail stores to actively support “Let’s clean up Serbia” campaign by offering citizens biodegradable and multi-purpose bags at a very low price of only several dinars, instead of giving them thin and rustling bags for free.

The Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning has proposed one of the measures to be implemented immediately after the adoption of the Law on Waste Management, which is to include the prohibition of the import, production and sale of bags thinner than 14 microns.

According to minister Dulić, the measure would imply that the Environmental Protection Fund shall subsidize the use of additives which make bags biodegradable, in order to avoid the free distribution of plastic bags in supermarkets and their disposal at landfills wherefrom they are wind-driven toward cities and towns.

In this way we wish to make future plastic bags recyclable, multi-usable, firstly used for carrying the goods purchased and then for carrying away waste – said minister Dulić and reminded that in carrying out numerous activities the Ministry cooperated with many chains of stores as well as with big manufacturers of plastic bags.

He emphasized that within the framework of “Let’s clean up Serbia” campaign, the Ministry has started to address waste management issues, and that the time has come to solve the issue of plastic bags «which end up in our natural environment, in the tree tops, on roofs, in river beds, etc. thus creating an ugly image of Serbian reality».