By Balqis Jazimah Zahari
Photo Fb MPT
TAIPING: The No Plastic Bag Campaign through the imposition of a charge for the use of plastic bags on Saturdays every week in the Taiping Municipal Council (MPT) operational area will be fully implemented on August 1.
The imposition of a plastic bag usage charge of RM0.20 will be charged for each piece of plastic bag supplied to users according to set criteria.
The Chairman of the Taiping Municipal Council, Khairul Amir Mohamad Zubir said there are eight premises criteria which are : hypermarkets, supermarkets, departmental store, convenience store, fast food restaurants, petrol station convenience store, chain stores and pharmacies.
These premises must register with the MPT if they wish to implement the campaign.
“For other types of premises, it will depend from time to time,” he said at a press conference in conjunction with the No Plastic Bag Campaign Engagement Session at Dewan Teratai Wisma Perbandaran Taiping here recently.
Khairul Amir said, it is understood that currently there are premises that have already started charging fees and there are premises that do not use plastic at all on Saturdays.
“So here there are three categories, one is charging, no charging and no plastic at all.
“For those who charge, we have a form prepared for them to register and the charge will be handed over to the government through MPT for us to reuse for environmental purposes.
“However, we encourage them not to use plastic bags on Saturday, that’s good and that’s the hope of this campaign,” he said.
He added that the implementation of the campaign is also in line with the government’s wish that from 1 January 2025 no more plastic will be used in any business premises.
“If the premises in the eight criteria fail to implement, we will take action based on the law set, but actually we do not want to take legal action and would rather they start implementing it themselves.
“They have already started and there is no problem, so we just want them to register and become our strategic partners for the purposes of this campaign,” he said.
