The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has passed a law restricting the use of plastic shopping bags.
If signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky, the law will ban stores from distributing thin and ultra-thin plastic bags with a thickness of less than 50 micrometers. It will also prohibit oxo-degradable bags, which are designed to fall apart into tiny particles over time. The bans will come into effect nine months after the law is published.
The law is designed to protect the Ukrainian and global environment from rampant plastic pollution. Scientists estimate that consumer plastics take hundreds of years to decompose and tend to turn into microplastics, which are extremely difficult to clean up.
In total, 297 lawmakers voted for the bill in its final reading on June 1.
The ban won’t apply to bags that meet EU standards for biodegradable plastics.
Thin plastic bags smaller than 22.5 by 34.5 by 45 centimeters, which supermarkets use to wrap raw meat, fish and other products, will be exempt from the ban until Jan. 1, 2023.
Stores and eateries that break the law would be fined from Hr 8,500 ($310) to Hr 17,000 ($620) by the State Service on Food Safety and Consumer Protection. Subsequent violations within a three-year period would carry fines of up to Hr 34,000 ($1,240).
Stores will also be prohibited from handing out thicker plastic bags for free or selling them below a rate that the Cabinet of Ministers will set.
Provisions that define enforcement and other specifics will come into force six months after the final version of the law is published.
The long-awaited law has languished in parliament since it was passed in the first reading in November 2019. Ukraine is following in the footsteps of the EU, which is also trying to regulate single-use plastics.
“Every year, every Ukrainian uses about 500 plastic bags, in the EU this figure reaches 90 bags on average,” the bill’s explanatory note reads.
Only 6% of plastic bags in Ukraine are recycled. Others end up in landfills.
Eugenia Aratovska, founder of nonprofit No Waste Ukraine, writes on Facebook that the “adoption of the law is a recognition of the trend towards ecological consumption.”
Aratovska expects that demand for biodegradable starch bags will rise, making them cheaper.
