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VietNamNet Bridge – From January 1, 2012, plastic bags will bear the
environment tax as stipulated by the Environment Protection Law. However, people
still have doubts about if the goal of reducing the plastic bags in use is
attainable.
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Run before one's horse to market
Once the Environment Protection Law comes into effect, every one kilo of plastic bags will bear the tax of 30,000-50,000 dong. If so, plastic bags will become more expensive, which will force Vietnamese people think carefully when using plastic bags.
However, some analysts do not think that the high tax can help. Most Vietnamese people do not have the habit of bringing fabric bags when going shopping. Though people well understand the ill effects of plastic bags, more than 50 percent of the people polled by the Waste Recycling Fund under the HCM City Department for Natural Resources and the Environment, said they would to leave some supermarkets for others which give free plastic bags.
The people said that they feel inconvenient when they have to spend money to buy fabric bags or bring bags with themselves when going shopping. Therefore, supermarkets and shopping malls still have to please buyers by delivering free plastic bags to customers.
It is estimated that in 2010, Vietnamese people used more than 12,000 tons of plastic bags, while the figure is expected to increase by 8-10 percent per annum. If considering that the average tax is 30,000 dong per kilo, Vietnam will be able to collect 360 billion dong from taxing plastic bags.
Supermarkets are leading distributors in terms of the number of plastic bags given to customers, if compared with traditional markets and shopping malls. Therefore, the program initiated by the HCM City authorities on reducing the plastic bag use will, in the first stage, stem from supermarkets.
However, also according to the Waste Recycle Fund, while 80.6 percent of supermarkets, shopping malls and traditional markets agree to join the program on minimizing plastic bags, the remaining say they will only implement the program if this is compulsory.
Do Thi Thuy Hang, a senior executive of Saigon Co-op, said that most supermarkets now have to deliver free plastic bags to customers.
“If some supermarkets charge money on bags, people will surely leave the supermarkets for others,” she said. “Therefore, we have no other choice than bearing the tax ourselves in order to retain customers.”
“If so, the taxation will not help heighten the people’s awareness about the ill effects of plastic bags, because the volume of plastic bags to be used will not decrease,” she said. The only good thing here is that the State will be able to collect tax from plastic bags.
Hang stressed that people will give up the habit of using plastic bags only if supermarkets are not allowed to give free plastic bags to customers. If so, supermarkets will be “equal” in the playing field, because they will not fear that their customers will leave just because of plastic bags.
Analysts have also said that if using non-plastic bags is not a must, no supermarket will dare to stop delivering plastic bags, which means that the program may fail completely.
Environment-friendly bags, why not?
Le Van Khoa, Director of the Waste Recycling Fund, also thinks that besides taxing plastic bags, it is necessary to support people to use environment-friendly bags which can be used for many times.
Khoa said that if people only hear that they have to pay money for plastic bags, while they do not know what the money to be raised from the taxation will be used for, it would be very difficult to persuade them to give up the habit of using plastic bags.
Source: Tien phong
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