How did we manage before the existence of plastic shopping bags? That’s the question Mexico City is answering by going back to its old ways of jute or reusable sacks following its ban on single-use plastic (SUP) bags.

The ban, which came into effect on 1 January 2021, prohibits the sale and distribution of all SUP bags and has invited protests from companies that produce them. “The solution should be regulating bags, not prohibiting them,” Aldimir Torres, president of the Mexican association of plastics industry ANIPAC (Mexico City; www.anipac.org.mx) told Reuters.

Industry players are suggesting a number of solutions, including a move towards multiple-use, thicker plastic bags, similar to what the US state of California did in November 2016 (see Plasteurope.com of 17.11.2016) when it became the first state in the US to ban SUP bags. Over the past five years, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon and Vermont have followed suit, with New Jersey being the newest addition to the list in the US. In Europe, Germany recently announced plans to implement the ban from 1 January 2022 (see Plasteurope.com of 23.12.2020).

“We have to take plastic out of circulation,” Andree Lilian Guigue, the official overseeing the ban in Mexico City, told Reuters. “Now we’re going back to paper bags, sacks, baskets. I think it will take a while, but people will get used to it.” The association estimates that Mexico City’s 20m residents use at total of 68,000 t of bags each year.