On July 1st last year, plastic shopping bags (plastic shopping bags) started to be charged.

The city of Kameoka has also started to charge for paper bags.

In Kameoka City, even paper bags are being charged. The reason is to reduce the burden on the local community and retailers who do not produce garbage. Opposition has also broken out to see if this is reducing environmental pollution. There are many people’s voices around asking for new plastic and paper bags to be provided due to the Corona infection, which will not change the mountains of garbage. The majority of garbage bags are made of plastic. Even if the number of plastic bags can be reduced, it is unlikely that plastic waste will decrease if the demand for alternative plastic bags increases.

According to BBC News, the western U.S. state of California was the first state in the U.S. to ban plastic shopping bags at retail stores in 2016. However, in response to the spread of the infection in the state, the state changed its mind and made plastic bags free of charge in April last year, citing the increased risk of infection among shoppers if they bring in reusable bags.

In San Francisco, the city issued an administrative order prohibiting customers from bringing reusable bags and mugs into the store. In the eastern state of Maine, a law banning the provision of plastic bags and requiring reusable bags or paper bags to be sold for at least 5 cents, or about 5 yen, was scheduled to go into effect in April of this year, but it was postponed until next year due to the risk of infection.

In England, plastic bags have been sold at 5 pence per bag since 2015 to reduce waste, but as more and more people use online supermarkets in response to the spread of the infection, the government has decided to temporarily provide free plastic bags to avoid delays in delivery.

I also asked foreigners at the college where I teach whether they were for or against the idea.

Ms. Lian, a Canadian student, was in favor of the charge. In daily life, few people act for the environment. One person can't change anything. One person can't change anything, but what if there are 100, 1,000, 1,000,000 people? It will always make a difference. Paper usage will be reduced, and one of the most wasteful uses will disappear. And what about plastic bags? Plastic bags are plastic bags. How many of them pollute the oceans and kill aquatic animals every year. By reducing their use, we can improve the situation, if only slightly.

So what about the economics?

Sure, it costs less for the store. What about us? It means we are paying more. But if you think about it the other way, it starts to make sense of profit. Pay-as-you-go is for everyone. You are making a profit by not being able to buy.

A bag is almost 10 yen. A week is 70 yen. A month is 280 yen. One year is 3,360 yen. In other words, you can buy a game for the price of a bag. You can spend that money in better places.

According to Mr. Simasan of Sri Lanka, paper bags have been a part of trade and commerce for centuries. Traditionally, cloth or jute bags were used to pack large quantities of goods in transit from manufacturers and farms to retailers and shopkeepers, who then used paper bags to distribute smaller quantities of goods to end customers. In fact, paper bags were still used by small food retailers such as confectionery shop owners, street food vendors, bakeries, and small vegetable vendors.

On the other hand, the structural hardness and surface features of paper bags make them ideal for printing high quality images, logos and designs compared to plastic bags, making paper bags a hit in the fashion, luxury and premium gift packaging industries.  Today, paper bags are the new trend. You can witness people carrying paper bags from almost every place. People carry them to schools, offices, and retail stores. Therefore, it is also very important to seek creative solutions. So that it can benefit both the business and most importantly the environment.

Mr. Prakas, a Nepali, said  

 While plastic bags are useful in many ways, they have proven to be very harmful to the environment for one reason. Plastic bags are non-biodegradable, which means they do not break down easily and are very difficult to dispose of. Our soil takes about 500 years to decompose one plastic bag. Burning them is useless as they release toxic gases into the atmosphere. Despite their extreme harmful effects, plastic bags are widely used today because they are lightweight, convenient, durable, and economical.

As an advantage, plastic bags hash out pollutants on land and sea. Banning them means that we will be free forever from the extreme damage it causes to our environment. There will be far less garbage on our land and in our oceans. The negative health effects it causes to humans, animals, and marine life are irreversible. Banning them would trample us into a much healthier journey.

 Plastic bags are manufactured using petroleum and produced in quantities of trillions per year. Such a large amount of oil can instead be directed to more important basic necessities such as automobile fuel.

Banning plastic bags means that we will have to find more organic materials as alternatives. A well-known alternative to plastic bags is paper bags. Commodity paper is already mass produced because it is widely used now, and the number of trees that are cut down for this purpose has caused a huge damage to the environment. Introducing paper bags now will only have a negative impact on this. In that case, introducing other organic materials as substitutes for such widely used products will only mean greater depletion of already minimized natural resources.

Conclusion

 View the cons of banning plastic bags as a problem or an opportunity. When the need is recognized, the problem of few natural resources can be turned into an opportunity to create more natural resources by planting more trees.

I have also asked some Japanese students.

Mr. Kimura agrees with the idea of charging for paper bags.

I don't mind it too much because I used to bring my own bags to shop even before they started charging. Plastic bags are difficult to use because they tear.

I think if we charge for disposable chopsticks and plastic spoons, we can refrain from polluting the environment. In conclusion, I think it would be more economical if we could get them at 100 yen stores if we need them.

I am in favor of charging for plastic bags and paper bags.

Some people say that it will not change because the demand for bags to dispose of garbage will increase.

However, plastic bags are not appropriate as garbage bags in most cases.

Paper bags used for souvenirs also usually end up as garbage in many cases.

Since plastic and paper are both important resources, I think it is better to reduce waste as much as possible.

I agree with you in terms of rethinking the way we produce garbage.

Japan still has one of the highest rates of waste generation in the world, so we need to make people aware of this, and I hope this will be a good start.

Mr. Shu Kawaguchi is against the idea of charging for plastic bags.

He is against the idea of charging for plastic bags, because people who buy plastic bags will buy them, and if more people buy them, they will make and keep plastic bags, so in the end it will be the same as before.

In conclusion, we should consider whether we are for or against banning plastic bags or paper bags, depending on the situation. It is true that the raw materials used to make garbage bags have become a problem because of environmental pollution, but is this the only solution to environmental pollution?

At present, we are making daily efforts to prevent bacteria as much as possible by using corona. In addition, when consumers are having a hard time financially, why not charge for something that used to be free? I wonder if the retail industry is making a profit. I asked one of the clerks at Isetan in Shikoku. The bags are still free at the store. He said that since the bags are free, the sales of the customers have increased.

(K.YOSHIDA)