The environment wins with the payment of the plastic bags.
The plastic, as is generally known, is a material hardly biodegradable, takes centuries to disintegrate. Portugal produces only about 2 tons per year of plastic bags. Although not weigh almost nothing has a detrimental effect on the environment and in particular for marine fauna that confuses it as a food, causing its death. A study by the regional chamber of Quercus in partnership with the University of Madeira revealed that the fee for plastic bags in supermarkets promotes reuse of this material that is not biodegradable, petroleum-derived, from consumers by about 50%. The aim was to study the behavior of optimizing and reusing shopping bags in 1028 customers on the island of Madeira. The study included two types of bags, paid and free, in two major retail chains and food distribution. The analysis, according to the website of Quercus, "reveals that the supermarkets where the bags are offered the use of new bags occurs in 95% of customers, a rate much higher than that which occurs in supermarkets where the bags are paid by revealing that the payment is a strong contribution to the reduction in the production of plastic bags that would inevitably contribute to greater production of waste. " Concerning the optimization of plastic bags, there was "also substantially improved results in supermarkets where customers have paid bags, a further contribution to preventing the generation of waste. Also concerning this last case the rate of customers who fills well the bags (2 to 3/3 of its capacity) reaches 52%, whereas that care is much lower in supermarkets where customers are offered bags. All conclusions induce a single measure which is the payment of plastic bags in all supermarkets.
http://madeira.quercus.pt/scid/subquercus/defaultarticleViewOne.asp?categorySiteID=596&articleSiteID=1731
