The supermarket chains Albert Heijn, Aldi, Jumbo, Lidl, and Plus have come together to participate in the Dutch government’s Plastic Pact by pledging to provide customers with reusable rPET-based bags for fruit and vegetable products that can be cleaned at home, essentially ending the distribution of free plastic and paper bags.

According to a joint statement released from the retailers, the move is expected to provide annual savings of 126 mn disposable plastic bags and 10 mn paper bags.

The statement added that every supermarket is to “make sure the switch happens by 2023” without specifying a date. It did, however, add that the implemented measure will be evaluated on 1 July 2024. While Lidl and Jumbo intend to make the switch in the next few months, Aldi said it will transition when its current supply of plastic bags is depleted.

Related: Schwarz group reports progress on recyclate use for Lidl, Kaufland

As part of the Netherlands’ Plastic Pact (www.plasticpact.nl), the Dutch government and over 100 leaders in the plastics industry aim to cut plastics consumption and improve recycling systems. “The retailers want to reduce the use of packaging and make reusable bags the norm, and consumers will have to get used to the change quickly,” Carlijn Röell, director of Plastic Pact NL, told Dutch daily AD.

Meanwhile in other parts of Europe, the Austrian national council adopted a ban on plastic bags back in 2019, the German Bundestag confirmed its ban on lightweight plastic bags with thicknesses between15 and 50 µm in December 2020, and Portugal is on its way to ban lightweight plastic bags for storing and transporting bread, fruits, and vegetables, by June 2023.