The Finnish Commerce Federation and the Ministry of the Environment signed a so-called green deal to reduce the consumption in 2016. While the deal led to a drop in the consumption of plastic bags until 2020, the consumption rebounded in 2021 and 2022, to the degree that there was only a slightly over eight-per-cent drop between 2017 and 2022.
Finns buy more than 350 million plastic shopping bags a year and consumer another roughly 350 million produce bags.
Marja Ola, a senior expert at the Finnish Commerce Federation, admitted to YLE last week that convincing everyone to use 15 fewer plastic bags in a year is a challenge given the difficulty of shaping consumer habits in a relatively short period of time.
“People buy a plastic bag when they forget their own bag home. The gist is how could we change these everyday routines,” she said.
The European Commission has the option to initiate an infringement proceeding against member states that fail to reach the target, Taino Nikula, an environmental advisor at the Ministry of the Environment, stated to YLE. The proceeding could initially lead to a formal notice and ultimately to a fine.
Finland has already received a provisional notice from the commission on its lack of progress toward waste management targets.
“We’ve had challenges reaching the recycling goals along the way,” said Nikula.
Unlike Austria and Germany, Finland has not taken legislative action to curb the consumption of plastic bags. The suppliers committed to the green deal have instead sought to reduce consumption with information campaigns, charging for plastic bag and removing free produce bags from the end of checkout counters.
Despite the measures, 90 per cent of bags bought at grocery shops are made from plastic, according to the public broadcasting company.
One of the supplementary measures that has been floated is lowering the price of paper bags. A ban on plastic bags, however, is widely regarded as a last-resort measure.
Ola from the Finnish Commerce Federation argued that Finnish plastic bags are part of the circular economy because they are made principally from recycled plastic and are weather proof. The issue is not straightforward because such bags, when used multiple times, could be in line with the circular economy targets of the EU.
“In Finland, plastic bags mostly end up used as trash bags, but before that they’ve been used to carry around sports shoes and other stuff. They may have been used dozens of times. That means they’re a great product, but there’s just too many of them.”
Plastic bags have generated discussion also in other regards.
A Danish study published in 2018 found that a paper bag has to be used 11 times, a textile bag 840 times and an organic textile bag 2,400 times before it becomes more environmentally friendly than a plastic bag that is re-used once to throw out household waste. Simultaneously plastic waste is a major global problem, with plastic bags the most common type of floating waste also in the Baltic Sea.
Plastic bags are one of the 10 most common waste items washing up on Finnish shores, according to a study by the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke).
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
