IKEA to stop providing plastic bags [News]

By Woo Sian Boon, Today, 26 Jan 2013.

In an effort to get shoppers to use fewer plastic bags here, a major retailer has decided to stop providing them in stores.

Come March, customers visiting Swedish furniture giant IKEA at both its Alexandra and Tampines outlets will either have to bring their own bags or purchase its blue reusable bags for their shopping.

The prices of the reusable bags have been reduced to S$0.90 for the large ones and S$0.30 for smaller versions, down from S$1.20 and S$0.60 respectively.

Said its Managing Director Christian Rojkjaer: “This initiative is the next natural step for us to further reduce the use and consumption of disposable plastic bags in Singapore and, at the same time, support change in people’s everyday behaviour for a positive sustainable impact for the environment.”

In 2007, IKEA became the first retailer here to charge for plastic bags.

Proceeds from the 18 million plastic bags sold since the start of the initiative have been donated to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to boost eco-education programmes.

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Source: Today

One-week FairPrice campaign to reduce plastic bag usage a success [News]

By Channel NewsAsia, 10 May 2012.

Supermarket chain FairPrice has received strong support for its efforts to encourage customers to save and reduce the use of plastic bags.

The “FairPrice Cares!” campaign, which ran from April 22 to 28, has saved over 143,000 plastic bags in a single week.

The amount exceeded FairPrice’s target of saving 100,000 plastic bags in one week by over 40 per cent.

As part of the campaign, FairPrice donated S$30,000 to Bizlink Centre and Bishan Home for the Intellectually Disabled to assist them in their community work. Read more