Supermarket Aeon Starts Charging for Plastic Shopping Bags in Kyoto

The major Japanese supermarket chain Aeon Co. began a test run of charging five yen (about 4 US cents) per plastic shopping bag on January 11, 2007 at its Jusco Higashiyama-Nijo branch in Kyoto. This is the first trial by a major supermarket with a nation-wide network. Aeon plans to extend the test to branches in Nagoya, Sendai and Yokoyama later this year, and to the remaining branches in Japan before 2010.

After discussions with eight civic parties and the Kyoto city government to obtain understanding from locals, Aeon reached an agreement on January 10, 2007, regarding the promotion of a "bring your own bag" campaign and the introduction of a charge on plastic shopping bags. The company started charging for plastic shopping bags at its Jusco Higashiyama-Nijo branch, where the company and Kyoto University collaborated through trial sales of locally produced and unwrapped food. The 5-yen bags are more durable for repetitive use than conventional free ones. Profits from these charges will be used for environmental preservation activities.

Aeon hopes to increase the proportion of shoppers bringing their own shopping bags to over 50 percent through 2010 by making efforts such as introducing a point service system.


http://www.aeon.info/en/aboutaeon/
- Local Gov't, Supermarket Agree on Plastic Bag Reduction (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/db/1582-e

Posted: 2007/04/01 12:42:22 AM
Japanese version