Tunisia, located in the northernmost part of the African continent, has joined the ranks of the ban on plastic bags. on August 31, the country's Ministry of Environment issued a statement saying that, according to the relevant decree, non-compliant plastic bags will be banned from circulation nationwide from September 1.
A statement from the Tunisian Ministry of Environment said that, according to previously issued regulations, the Tunisian government will ban the circulation of plastic bags of substandard thickness, excessive heavy metal content and non-compliance with biodegradation requirements in all business premises. The Ministry of Environment of Tunisia hopes to significantly reduce the pollution caused by plastic bags to the local environment by the end of 2024.
In recent years, plastic pollution has been a growing problem in the North African country, where randomly discarded plastic bags have become a basic sight in Tunisia, and even entire trees are covered with plastic bags, and both the country's land and marine ecosystems have been completely polluted by plastic items.
As a result of mankind's over-reliance on single-use plastic bags, serious environmental damage has been caused. In the case of Tunisia, the country consumed more than 4.2 billion single-use plastic bags, of which 1.2 billion were brought into the country by informal bags, which are small in size, and the habit of the population is to use and throw away.
Tunisia actually tried to implement a plastic bag ban in 2016, but unfortunately it was opposed by the business community and failed. Although the failure, but has led the country's major supermarkets no longer provide free plastic bags, replaced by durable bags for a fee, greatly reducing the use of single-use plastic bags.
In addition to the single-use plastic bag issue, Tunisia has many major environmental challenges to face, for example, the use of plastic straws and plastic molds for commercial packaging is still very large. In addition, Tunisia's over-reliance on older heavy industries, including phosphate production, has rendered the country's entire land and coastline unusable.
While the government has made some progress in limiting pollution, any measure seen as damaging to industrial fears in a country with an unemployment rate of just 15 percent is likely to be controversial.
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