German authorities have decided to ban even biodegradable bags
As "Russkaya Germaniya" notes, Germany plans to tighten the rules for using plastic bags, although the country has already exceeded the standards prescribed by the European Union. The initiatives of Environment Minister Svenja Schulze are aimed at the near future: the draft law developed by her ministry has been sent for approval to relevant departments and could come into force as early as the first half of 2020, banning the use of plastic bags in order to completely remove them from the retail sector – including biodegradable ones.
Such bags do not decompose exactly like real biowaste and also place an unacceptable burden on the environment. The distribution through retail outlets of bags intended for filling with goods will be prohibited, but the draft law still provides for a number of exceptions: they will be made for durable reusable plastic bags and very thin tear-off bags for vegetables and fruit. A ban on the latter, according to the ministry's environmental experts, could only lead to greater waste.
Free distribution of plastic bags was stopped in Germany in 2016 – this is a voluntary commitment by the retail sector. Since then, many stores have either completely abandoned them or charge customers for them. Nevertheless, on average, each resident of the country still throws away 20 bags per year, although this figure is already a great success: back in 2015, each German accounted for 64 used bags per year. EU standards assume that by the end of 2025, no more than 40 bags per year should be used per resident of a member state.
With the entry into force of the draft law, retail chains will be given a six-month transition period to dispose of existing stocks of plastic bags. Subsequently, violators face fines of up to 100,000 euros.
The idea of the Environment Minister has caused misunderstanding in the retail sector and a skeptical attitude among environmentalists. "This is a direct violation of the agreements reached," believes Stefan Genth, managing director of the German Retail Federation (Handelsverbands Deutschland, HDE), referring to the 2016 commitments given to Svenja Schulze's predecessor Barbara Hendricks. "A legislative ban with existing voluntary commitments is pure symbolic politics."
Criticism also comes from the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF), whose experts believe that the ban will have only symbolic significance – bags make up a very small share of plastic waste, according to the Ministry of the Environment itself, just one percent. If consumers switch to paper bags, it does not mean that nature will become significantly better – there are doubts about their environmental friendliness already because producing one paper bag requires twice as much energy resources as a plastic one. Moreover, paper is not as strong, and reusing these bags is difficult.
Fabric bags are also not a panacea: their environmental balance is a hundred times worse than plastic bags, notes the nature conservation organization Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU). Such a bag would have to be used a hundred times to offset all production costs – buying it for a one-time purchase and stacking it at home is completely pointless.