Serbia Throws Plastic Bags in Dustbin of History

Serbia's Environment Ministry has unveiled a set of measures designed to make plastic bags a thing of the past.

On January 1 a new regulation came into force penalising the further sale and distribution of non-ecological bags.  

Meanwhile, Bojan Djuric, State Secretary in the Environment Ministry, has announced new measures to encourage manufacturers to use disposable and biodegradable bags in future.

Manufacturers and importers of old-style plastic bags will have to pay a fee of 22,300 dinars (about 220 euro) per ton. On the other hand, the government will subsidise the production of compostable and biodegradable bags to the tune of 7,000 dinars (about 70 euro) per ton.

"All these measures should lead to there being be no more plastic bags that are not degradable or biodegradable in Serbia in few months," Djuric said.

According to Djuric, the measures do not require new investment or purchase of equipment. Production of biodegradable and compostable bags is performed with equipment that manufacturers already have with the addition of additives to make bags biodegradable.

Each year, the avarage Serbian citizen uses approximately 300 bags or more, which environmentalists says is far too many.

Dobrica Veselinovic, a Belgrade NGO activist, said supermarkets and grocery stores were partly to blame for the high amount of bags in circulation by offering customers new bags whether they needed them or not.

Veselinovic set up his own website last year, Brojim Kese (Counting Bags), to see how many plastic bags he received in an average year.  The number was 342.

"The figure of 342 does not look that big but when you see all these bags in one place in your appartment, it's pretty scary," Veselinovic told Balkan Insight.