There is no denying that Thailand has a rather extreme plastic bag addiction that needs to be addressed and address it they have this year. No major store is providing plastic bags anymore under the pretense of environmental protection and I gotta say that I'm totally for that.
Several other countries that I have been to had plastic bag bans and I always think this is kinda a good idea but I don't mean to be a conspiracy theorist, but looking at what has been done in the supermarkets, I have a difficult time believing that this is, or ever was, about the environment.
Here's the thing: No other aspect of society except for large corporate shops have had this ban applied to them. If you go to Tesco, Big C (both are similar to Wal-Mart), 7-11, or any other corporate mini-mart, they have no plastic bags that automatically come with your purchases.
You know what they do have though? Plastic bags FOR SALE. While it is encouraged to reuse these bags, there is no real guarantee that anyone is going to do so and now this is where i become a cynic.
Imagine you are the CEO of a massive minimart company like 7-11 and since you can't really make your prices any lower and you already have near complete control of the minimart industry i think it would mean millionsof dollars of extra profits if you were to eliminate something that is expected of your business to provide for free. Think about it... what company is going to not be excited about no longer needing to give something away hundreds of thousands of times a day?
It should also be pointed out the almost everything sold in 7-11 and all other minimarts is already packaged in a plastic container of some sort.
I'm not going to dig into it, but i would be willing to bet that all of the major stores got together and actually pressured the government to make this law and also to have it ONLY apply to them so as not to have an outcry of opposition from smaller stores.
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If you go to any market anywhere in this country, and they are wildly popular, your purchase will almost certainly be given to you in one plastic bag, and that plastic bag will almost certainly be put into another plastic bag that has handles.
There is no ban on this segment of society, not that they would comply anyway because how else are you supposed to transport this stuff?
What I'm saying is this: There is no plastic bag ban in Thailand. I believe there is corporate savings disguised as environmentalism going on.
That's not to suggest that I am opposed to eliminating plastic bags but what I am suggesting is that maybe we shouldn't be congratulating the government for their environmental vision just yet, because I really don't think that is what is going on here.
Well it is a step in the right direction. I admit that the "conspiracy theory" side of things that you mention in here about this all being a ruse to gain corporate profits is something I consider to be very likely.
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