Plastic-free Saturdays begin

Caymanian Compass
December 7, 2011

Beginning this weekend, every second Saturday of each month will be plastic bag-free days in the Cayman Islands. 

Last year, local supermarkets replaced their nondegradable plastic shopping bags with biodegradable alternatives and started charging 5 cents per shopping bags in a bid to cut down on the number of bags ending up in Cayman’s landfill. 

That first phase of the Cayman BECOME campaign brought an initial reduction of as much as 80 per cent in the number of plastic bags sold in supermarkets. Prior to that, an estimated 12 million plastic bags were being disposed of every year in Grand Cayman. 

Now the Corporate Green Team Network is embarking on the next phase to cut down on the amount of plastic finding its way to Mount Trashmore.

Starting this Saturday, 10 December, on every second Saturday of every month, supermarkets will not hand out any plastic shopping bags, in a bid to encourage shoppers to either bring their own bags from home or purchase environmentally-friendly, re-usable bags. Read the whole story here.