Lidl to stops selling plastic bags in Portugal

Paul Rees 21 February 2019

lidl The German supermarket chain, Lidl, is to stop supplying plastic bags across its 250 stores in Portugal.

The phasing-out begins in May and ends in December 2019, with alternative paper or raffia bags available to customers.

In Portugal, Lidl sold 25 million plastic bags last year, which corresponds to a turnover of €2.5 million per year as each bag costs 10 cents.

The new alternatives offer no price advantage for customers as it’s still 10 cents for the medium paper bag, 14 cents for the larger version and 50 cents for the raffia bags.

The purchasing manager of Lidl Portugal says the raffia bags, with 60% recycled material, have been available since 2010. The paper bags will be available from May.

Asked about the cost of this initiative for the company, Bruno Pereira said that, "We do not see this as a cost but rather as an investment in the environment, which is not an isolated decision but is part of a more comprehensive strategy."

Lidl already has reduced the use of plastics and has decided to stop selling disposable plastic articles (removing 12.5 million cups and five million plastic dishes per year from the rubbish tip,) and reducing plastic consumption by 20% by 2025 in all its own brand packaging.

Comments

+1 #5 ?? 2019-02-24 11:38

For you that cant shop without a plasticitet bag, think, i bet you can get some sort of texture bag somewhere. And use it everytime.

+4 #4 Shopper-holic 2019-02-24 05:49

Lidl in my area was the best supermarket to go to but slowly over the years it has degraded in many ways, it can't help if it can't find staff as many retail outlets suffer the same fate but nevertheless if more focus was placed on customers and customer service how wonderful the shopping experience would be, but banning plastic bags in Portugal will see many people un prepared for the change, in other western countries plastic bags were banned years ago, i see waiting times at the queue taking longer than it is now, and with the staff being fitted with headsets to chatter to each other completely ignoring the customer, well Lidl, it's time to move on.

0 #3 TT 2019-02-22 23:04

I agree 100% that plastic packaging on fruit, veg & other food products should be reduced. But bags? Carrier bags inevitably get re-used, often just to transport rubbish to the bins. So if people don't get carrier bag, they have to buy bin bags - which are made of plastic!
The 10c rule saw and end to the cheap and often biodegradable bags, they were replaced with the much hardier things we see now, so it may in fact have had an overall negative effect as they mostly still end up in the same place.

+9 #2 AL 2019-02-22 15:14

Great move! Fruit and veg packaging should be next.

+7 #1 Jack Reacher 2019-02-22 10:48

What about the local home grown Pingo Doce? Should be setting the standards rather than follwing foreign owned. Well done Lidl.

Refresh comments list

You must be a registered user to make comments.
Please register here to post your comments.

JComments