Portugal was the third EU country that used the least plastic bags in 2022. A Portuguese person only uses 13 per year.
Portugal was, in 2022, the third Member State of the European Union (EU) with the lowest consumption of plastic bags, an average of 13 per person, compared to 66.6 in Europe as a wholea decrease compared to the previous year.
Data published today by the EU’s statistical office, Eurostat, reveals that, in 2022 (year with most recent data), each person living in the community consumed, on average, 66.6.
Still, this represented a decrease of 10.8 bags (-14%) per person compared to 2021.
In all, 29.8 billion lightweight plastic bags were consumed across the EU in 2022, which represents a decrease of 4.7 billion bags compared to 2021, according to Eurostat.
By Member State, among those for which data are available (26 out of 27), Portugal was the third with the lowest consumption (13, without differentiation in type), surpassed only by Poland (seven) and Belgium (four)the latter being the country with the lowest number.
In turn, the countries that reported the highest consumption of lightweight plastic bags per person in 2022 were Lithuania (249 bags per person), the Latvia (193) and others Czech Republic (185), with the majority of consumption relating to very light plastic bags, i.e. with a wall thickness less than 15 micrometers.
All EU countries have consumption reduction measures in place, as required by the plastic bags directive, which aims to reducereduce consumption to not exceed 40 per person by December 31, 2025 (this target does not include very light ones).
Eurostat justifies that the variation in per capita consumption is “mainly due to differences in the effectiveness of measuresinfluenced by economic, social and political factors”, in addition to that “some countries applied consumption reduction measures during the period 2018-2022, while others applied them over a longer period”.
“A third factor is the use of different calculation methods in EU countries”, says the community statistical office.
In Portugal, the price of plastic bags has been, since 2015, the year in which charges began, of 8 cents plus VAT, that is, 10 cents. However, bags used for bread, fruit and vegetables.
The general director of the Portuguese Association of Distribution Companies (APED), Gonçalo Lobo Xavierstated last year that the measure of implementation of 4 cents fee planned for fruit and vegetable bags “did not anticipate a “significant impact” from an environmental point of view.
The director of APED also assured that the charge for light bags “has no parallel in any country in the world”. European Union” which is “missing” in terms of recommendations regarding this type of plastic bags.
