Antiplastic bag drive

Department of Environmental Quality Promotion's director-general Orapin Wongchumpis said the agency had collaborated with business owners, including shopping malls and small convenient stores, to launch a campaign "No plastic bags for 45 days to reduce global warming" for a second year to urge people to cut down on their use plastic.

At the end of the campaign, Orapin said, consumers would have reduced their plastic bag usage by 12,732,061 bags.

Last year, the campaign urged people to cut back the number of plastic bags they used by 4,400,000 bags.

Orapin said according to this year's survey, The Mall group was the shopping centre which could most limit plastic bag usage by 4,600,000 bags, followed by Carrefour with 2,958,904, Tesco Lotus - 1,208,219, Big C - 1,71,233, Central Department Store - 1,000,000, Siam Jusco company - 200,000, Foodland - 100,000, Seven Eleven shops - 1,247,130 and Siam Family Mart with 246,575 bags.

"These figures are a good sign people are now becoming more aware and pay more attention to environmental issues," she said.