Since January 1st, 2021, Tico supermarkets have said “goodbye” to single-use plastic bags and will no longer have them available to their customers. Mariela Pacheco, deputy manager of Corporate Affairs at Walmart, said that the purpose of this initiative is to reduce the environmental footprint.
“As of January 1st, we stopped delivering single-use plastic bags to our Walmart, Mas x menos, Maxi Palí and Palí stores. This is one more action to reduce our environmental footprint and go ahead of the legislation. We encourage all our customers to use reusable bags when shopping,” said Pacheco.
For his part, Elián Villalobos, member of the environmental organization Green Wolf, indicated that it is a significant step but on the issue of the use of plastic, there are still many challenges.
“We applaud this determination and that it also helps a lot in the fight against plastic pollution. We have been able to see first-hand that the impact at the country level is not minor but rather alarming. From now on, what remains is to educate the population on what alternatives for use they have both in reusable bags or materials that are 100% compostable”, declared Villalobos.
Significant pollution generator
According to a study by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the plastics industry is the third-largest industry in Costa Rica. Around 550 tons of plastic are discarded annually in the country. In 2019, supermarkets began to promote the use of cloth bags or environmentally friendly materials.
