Mercadona, one of Valencia’s biggest supermarket chains announced that they will no longer offer plastic bags to customers. This comes well over a year since the French chain, Carrefour, stopped giving away plastic. Reusable shopping bags are available for sale at Mercadona for .60€. It’s one small step by the food store and one giant step for the local environment. Valencia’s other big grocer, Consum, also seems ready to do away with free plastic bags as they have started selling reusable bags. People should welcome this change that may be a slight inconvenience at times but will mean a lot less trash.
Without fear of hyperbole I think that it is safe to say that plastic bags are one of the most evil creatures on the face of the earth. So stop being lazy and carry a shopping bag the next time you head out to the store.
Spaniards use an average of 238 bags annually, or about 9.2 billion. Of these only about 10% are recycled. It is estimated that plastic bags take about 400 years to break down and decompose. That's a lot of garbage just because you were too lazy to bring a bag with you shopping. The goal here in Spain is to completely eliminate the use of plastic bags by 2018.
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