Legambiente and the Cnr of Catania have conducted research into bio shopping bags, finding that around 23 per cent of them are illegal.
It has been five years since the ban on selling plastic bags came into force, a flagship measure of Italian environmental legislation. Italy was the first country in Europe to ban single-use polyethylene carrier bags in 2012, well before the European Union adopted its directive on the reduction of plastic in shopping bags. Unfortunately, however, illegal bags — looking very similar to regular ones and even bearing a compostability mark — are present in large numbers on our market.
This was highlighted by research carried out by the Cnr of Catania, commissioned by Legambiente and La Nuova ecologia, which analysed 26 "compostable" bags collected from as many retail outlets across the country, using an innovative technique that detects the presence of polyethylene. No fewer than 22 of these contained traces of polyethylene, six of which in quantities well outside the permitted limits. And we are talking about bags that appear to the consumer to be entirely regular and compliant with the Uni En 13432 standard.
We are facing, in short, a genuine fraud with environmental implications that calls to mind recent scandals in the automotive world. In this case it is not organised crime that is acting, but ordinary manufacturing companies counterfeiting the products they distribute on the market. For this reason, we have decided to report the matter to the Antitrust authority, the body responsible for protecting the market and consumers who, unaware of what has been revealed thanks to the thorough methodology developed by the Cnr of Catania, believe they can reuse the bags to collect organic waste.
The phenomenon causes serious harm to the environment and to legitimate businesses, and risks undermining the effectiveness of the legislation if it is not stopped. Consider that the additional disposal costs caused by the presence of plastic in organic waste — due to those counterfeit bags that citizens, unaware of the fraud, use to collect food scraps — amount to 50 million euros.
Until now, the major retail chains have proved attentive to compliance with the legislation, but the investigation shows that this is not always straightforward. The problem, moreover, is by no means confined to supermarkets; non-compliant bags are very common in open-air markets, and there are also traders who sell shopkeepers plastic bags "for internal use" that are then handed out to customers. The Guardia di Finanza, in coordination with the Ministry of the Environment, is investigating the phenomenon across Italy. We know, for the moment, that more than 200,000 non-compliant bags have been seized from discount stores and food retail outlets.
The issue will certainly need to be resolved, and not only for the health of the environment and the sea (non-compostable bags represent a danger to marine species), but also to avoid halting the virtuous process that is under way despite the illegalities. Plastic bag consumption in Italy is falling. More and more people are using reusable bags. These are important signals telling us that the path taken is the right one. It is also for this reason that we recently launched the #unsaccogiusto campaign to raise citizens' attention and awareness of the problem.