EPA to remove plastic bag ban on food stalls starting May 1

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on March 30, 2006. It reports that starting on May 1, 2006, food stalls around Taiwan will be exempt from a nationwide plastic bag ban set up by the Environmental Protection Administration. However, proper restaurants and diners located in shopping centers, supermarkets and wholesale stores will still have to abide by the present regulation. The regulation stipulates that plastic bags must be sold, not given away for free, and that they must be at least 0.6-milimeter thick.

The Environmental Protection Administration decided to revise the three-year-old ban on plastic bags because of certain confusion over whether food court restaurants should be considered as "stalls" or "diners with shop fronts".

The Department of Waste Management under the Environmental Protection Administration decided to include restaurants operating in shopping malls and large-scale indoor markets in the plastic bag ban. Officials argued that the seating area in food courts are designed to fit a maximum capacity of hungry shoppers for a certain period of time, which makes the dining experience different from that of ordering take-away food from street stalls. Therefore, these food court restaurant owners should abide by the plastic bag ban and sell 0.6 millimeter-thick bags for a minimum of NT$2, depending on the size.

Meanwhile, starting on July 1, 2006, the Environmental Protection will ban food suppliers in state-run facilities from providing consumers with non-recyclable, or plastic, cutlery. It is the first stage of the government agency's plan to promote its plastic products restriction policy. In September 2006, the same law will apply to food suppliers on campuses. It is estimated that enforcement of the policy will bring about a reduction of 2,700 tons of plastic products every year.