Comments on: Plastic Bag Price Rise in Norway

By: Sigbjørn Hagaseth

Sigbjørn Hagaseth — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 12:30:31 +0000

A plastic bag in Norway now costs 4.25 NOK. However, none of this money directly benefits the Norwegian people or the government.

Out of the total cost, 2 NOK goes to the private company Handelens Miljøfond, which distributes funds as it sees fit – a quick search reveals that they often contribute to organizations where they hold positions on the board themselves. There is no oversight on how the funds are utilized, but the general intention is to support organizations working towards environmental improvement. Neither the government nor consumers have any influence over the allocation of these funds.

The remaining 2.25 NOK goes directly into the pockets of store owners, including individuals such as Odd Reitan, Stein Erik Hagen, and others.

In Norway, 80% of plastic bags are utilized as disposal bags. About 18.5% are recycled, with a mere 1.5% ending up in the garbage. There is no available data supporting the claim that a significant number of bags find their way into the ocean or nature.

Interestingly, the reduction of single-use plastic bags has led to a surge in the usage of reusable bags. However, if these bags are made of cotton, they need to be used 7100 times to offset the environmental impact equivalent to that of a plastic bag. The number increases to 20,000 for ecologic cotton and ranges from 35 to 84 for polyester bags.

In essence, the effort to reduce single-use plastic bags has inadvertently resulted in a surge of negative effects on the environment and society.

While plastic bags pose significant problems in other parts of the world, it is crucial to ensure that environmental measures are correct, logical, and positively impact the environment. Initiatives like paper straws and high prices on plastic bags are deemed counterproductive and risk undermining the broader environmental movement.

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 12:22:28 +0000

I was thinking about this recently. We use bags we get from the supermarket (despite us always having reusable ones in the car) as rubbish bins for restavfall (green for food waste and clear for plastics as we live in Nannestad). So they’re ‘reused’ for something else even though plastic isn’t ideal, I wonder what else we could use instead? 132 bags per person is insane though! I might try to keep a tally of how much we use in the next 12 months and see if we use anywhere near that much!

By: Nicolò Silvani

Nicolò Silvani — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 10:08:20 +0000

England went from 7.6billion plastic bags in 2014 to 133 million last year, so it’s totally doable to reduce numbers here in Norway too. Apart from price rises, which is probably still the main factor, the narrative/touchpoint flow should change.
I notice in Norway cashiers still ask if you need bags, every single time, and never mention the cost of the bag when offering the purchase, they make it sound like it’s free (granted most people know it comes with a cost, but overlook it).
In the UK, it’s usually the buyer that asks for bags if needed. Quite a few times, especially for smaller purchases, the buyer would not even think about asking for a bag, as they can easily carry things with the hands/pockets, but when asked if they need a bag they might go “ok why not?”.
Overall, I see more plastic in Norwegians supermarkets (do they really need to wrap individual peppers??) than what I see in the UK – at least in recent years.