Marine lives matter: Plastic bag ban and further actions to reduce marine plastics

JAPAN and Indonesia both implemented new bans on single-use plastic shopping bags on July 1, 2020. The Minister of the Environment of Japan, Shinjiro Koizumi, said Japan aimed to increase the percentage of people who did not receive plastic bags up to 60 percent by the end of the year. As a result of the new regulations in Japan and Jakarta, many people started to use their own bags for shopping. According to a survey performed in August 2020 by the state-led NHK, more than 70 percent of customers refuse to pay 2 to 4 cents for a plastic bag at convenience stores in Japan since the implementation of the policy. However, enforcing these regulations has not been without challenges.

Indonesia and Japan can both be considered as latecomers to the application of single-use plastic bag bans in Asia where a number of cities and countries have already introduced similar policies. In Malaysia, Penang state adopted a plastics ban policy in July 2009. In 2010, Selangor state started a campaign to ban plastic bags one day a week, which became an everyday ban in 2016. In the Philippines, Siquijor island also prohibited the sales of new plastic bags in February 2019. Thailand has prohibited single-use plastic bags at major stores since the beginning of 2020. In Indonesia, before Jakarta, some big cities and provinces had already introduced bans, including Banjarmasin (2016), Balikpapan (July 2018), Bogor (December 2018) and Bali (December 2018).