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Consumers with plastic bags: wall thicknesses greater than 49 microns are legal
Photo: Chris Emil Janssen / imago images / Chris Emil Janssen
Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) has warned supermarket operators to comply with the applicable plastic bag ban in retail.
Lemke said in Berlin that the markets should do their part to curb the flood of disposable plastic and quickly remove "cheat bags" that are used to circumvent the ban from the range.
The background is the practice in supermarkets and drugstores of simply making disposable plastic bags a few micrometers thicker in order to be able to offer them legally.
This is possible because the ban that has been in effect since January 1, 2022 only applies to plastic bags with a wall thickness of 15 to a maximum of 49 micrometers.
Limited room for manoeuvre
»Fucking the law by simply making single-use bags slightly thicker is bad for the environment.
I hope that there won't be a need for legal regulation again," said the minister.
The topic was brought up by the German Environmental Aid with a survey among 13 German food retailers and drugstores.
In a statement released on Thursday, the activists accused the markets of offering bags with wall thicknesses of between 50 and 60 microns to circumvent the legal ban.
RTL/ntv had previously reported about it.
In connection with the plastic bag ban, Lemke also referred to a limited scope for action.
For example, EU law is currently preventing a ban on thick-walled bags, said Lemke.
In Germany in 2019 - before the ban came into force - 1.49 billion lightweight plastic bags with wall thicknesses of less than 50 micrometers were put into circulation.
Most of the time, the bags are only used once and often thrown away thoughtlessly.
However, the ban also met with criticism.
The objection was that the environmental balance of the paper bags offered as an alternative was no better.
It is not yet known how many of the thicker-walled plastic bags are currently in circulation.
mik/dpa-AFX