Supermarkets In Asia Are Using Banana Leaves Instead Of Plastic Bags

Supermarkets in Vietnam and Thailand are leading the fight against single use plastics by doing away with plastic bags altogether and replacing them with banana leaves.

Anyway, this new and encouraging development started with a Facebook post showing the leaves being used in the Rimping supermarket in Chiangmai, Thailand

After seeing how much good publicity that post got, supermarkets in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, as well as Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City have all followed suit.

There are other plans in place, too. Big C supermarket has already started using biodegradable bags made from corn.

In other countries it is taking off as well. South Korea recently banned single use plastic bags and packaging. That means that – instead of the small charge that we’ve got in the UK – shops need to provide an alternative, whether that is a recyclable container, a non-plastic bag, or whatever.

Taiwan has started charging, and Singapore is running campaigns to get people to stop.

The biggest change of all, however, is China, which has banned the use of super thin plastic bags since 2008. Since then, the use of plastic bags has dropped 66 percent and they’ve kept more than 40 billion bags out of the ocean.

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