Why Do We Get Charged For Plastic Bag Usage?

As we all know, plastic shopping bags in Turkey are 25 Kuruş (0.04 US Dollars) since 1 January 2019. The public has disagreed on this issue since this practice was announced. Some say "One of the unnecessary taxes that the state receives from the citizens" for this practice, while others find the project reasonable. So why are the nylon bags charged?

In my previous articles, I have said that we can organize our lifestyles to include less plastic. However, nylon bags are plastic tools frequently used in our country and therefore its pricing was met with a big reaction. However, it is completely wrong to define this application as "Unnecessary Tax". Because this practice is not only a practice unique to Turkey. In many European countries and Canada, these practices were put into effect years before Turkey. The main purpose of this practice is not to make the state make money from plastic bags, but rather to undermine the use of plastic bags. With this application, we can turn to alternatives rather than plastic bags. For example, instead of bags, we can fill our bags with products or use cloth bags. I always put all the products I bought from the market in my bag and I started doing this before the paid bag application came into effect. Since this application started, the use of plastic bags in our country has dropped by 77.27% and a hundred and fifty thousand tons of plastic has been saved in a year. The government fined 121 thousand 411 lira (20.040 USD) last year for salesmen who did not comply with this practice. the remuneration of plastic bags in Turkey succeeded in undermining the use of bags, which is the main purpose initially met with reaction. I hope that this kind of applications will spread to materials like plastic bottles so that we can gradually give up plastic bottles that we call indispensable.