Kuala Lumpur, May 10 The Malaysian government will ban the use of plastic bags in the commercial sector across the country from 2025, after gradually limiting their use, Environment and Climate Change Minister Nik Nazmi announced.
The measure will be one of the most important stages of the campaign “No to plastic bags”, framed in a “long-term plan to tackle pollution caused by single-use plastic in Malaysia”.
“Plastic waste management is a major problem and Malaysia is one of the top ten nations in the world facing this problem,” Nazmi stated in an appearance the day before, whose statements were collected in a document provided by the Ministry.
Malaysia is one of the world’s largest producers of plastic and one of the main importers of waste from other countries. In 2020 alone, the country used 148,000 metric tons of plastic for food packaging, according to a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), cited by the minister.
“This is not a record to be proud of,” Nazmi said.
The ban on the use of plastic bags began to be applied in 2021 in physical establishments, such as supermarkets, mini-markets and sundries stores, and will be progressively extended to any point of sale until its complete veto in 2025.
The Government also plans to expand the measure to other commercial sectors after being implemented in all physical points of sale by 2025 in order to combat the enormous dependence on plastic in the country.
According to Nazmi, the initiative will seek, more than applying fines to offenders, to provide an “incentive” for businesses to stop using plastic bags, although he did not specify more details.
“We have given regional governments and local authorities the flexibility to decide how to implement this ban, taking into account their individual needs,” he explained. EFE
nbo-sn/raa/gcf
