Chile is expected to become the first country in South America to ban plastics
Chile may become the first country in South America to ban plastic products, after the country's Constitutional court ruled in favor of a ban on plastic products in the commercial sector.
At the beginning of July, the Chilean Congress passed a bill banning the use of plastic bags by businesses. The Plastics Industry Association, an industry group, went to the Constitutional Court last week, accusing the bill of violating the constitution. The lawsuit has now been dismissed by the Constitutional Court. The bill now awaits the signature of President Sebastian Pinera and could become law. The ban gives shops and malls of different sizes a "transitional period" of six months to a year.
CCTV reporter Liao Junhua: Chile can be said to be one of the leaders in Latin America's "plastic ban action". As early as four years ago, Chile's southern Patagonia region began to ban the use of plastic bags, and last year, the ban was extended to coastal areas. At present, the capital Santiago is in a "plastic ban transition period", and more and more supermarkets have begun to replace plastic bags with environmentally friendly shopping bags or paper bags.
San Diego resident Carmen: I began to use environmentally friendly bags shopping last year, when I saw the Las Gondes district launched a "ban plastic campaign", I immediately took my whole family to participate.
Andrea Enriquez, local head of Corporate Social Responsibility: We are implementing the ban in a gradual way, first informing customers that the number of plastic bags will be reduced to a maximum of three bags per purchase, then to two, then to one, for example in the district of Las Gondes, where there are now zero bags.
Official Chilean figures show that Chileans use 3.4 billion plastic bags each year, with each person using an average of about 200. The polythene bags can take up to 500 years to degrade in the environment.
The problem with plastic bags is that they can only be used for a short time, but it takes hundreds of years to degrade, and it also damages the Marine ecosystem.