Friday, 28. 6. 2019

Are you prepared to take on a challenge and refuse to use plastic products and plastic bags in July?

1 July marks the start of the international plastic free month. The challenge to avoid plastic products by replacing them with sustainable ones, that is, those in line with the circular economy principles.

International Plastic Bag Free Day

In July, on the initiative of the Plastic Free July Foundation (#plasticfreejuly), we are marking the plastic free month as well as the International Plastic Bag Free Day.
The City of Ljubljana is joining the global movement. Our aim is to encourage all citizens not to buy or offer products which are made completely of plastic, contain plastic or are wrapped in it. And again we call upon retailers and hospitality service providers in the city centre to join the campaign against plastic bags.

Campaign against plastic bags in Ljubljana

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As we are aware of how harmful the use of plastic bags is and what impact it has on the environment, we launched the campaign titled »I’m not lasting, but therefore less annoying. I’m a biodegradable bag.« already in 2016, when Ljubljana was the European Green Capital, calling attention to the overuse of plastic bags, which are harmful for the environment, and promoting the use of biodegradable bags.
This year we presented our cooperation with retailers and hospitality service providers in the city centre. We have called upon retailers and hospitality service providers in the city centre to offer only paper or biodegradable shopping bags to their customers instead of plastic bags. Over 45 retailers and hospitality service providers have joined us already, we are presenting them on a prominently featured subpage and they have already received a special sticker informing customers that they do not use plastic bags. We are inviting all other retailers and hospitality service providers to take part.

Promoting the use of own bags or baskets

Within the scope of different campaigns we distributed biodegradable bags among vendors at the central market. In addition, we explained why plastic bags are such a burden on the environment and encouraged visitors to use biodegradable bags for their shopping and demand them from vendors, that is, to use their own bags or baskets to further reduce the use of different types of packaging.

A dispenser for biodegradable bags set up at the central market

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In April 2019, we have set up a bag dispenser at the central market where shoppers can take free-of-charge biodegradable bags. The bag dispenser was going to be available for 30 days, but as it was very popular among citizens and vendors alike, truly popular, it remains set up at the central market all the way up to October 2019.
Bags from the dispenser are appropriate for storing food (Bioplast GF 106/02 certificate), they have the SEEDLING 7P2029 certificate confirming that the bags can be composted, and the VINCOTTE S396 / OK COMPOST HOME certificate which means that the bags can be thrown away into household compost.