Bring Your Own Bag Day (BYOBD)

In order to encourage shoppers to bring their own shopping bags so as to help reduce wastage of plastic bags and promote resource conservation, the “Why waste plastic bags? Choose reusable bags!” campaign was launched on 11 February 2006.

This campaign was taken a step further on 18 April 2007 with the launch of the monthly Bring Your Own Bag Day (BYOBD) every first Wednesday of the month.

On BYOBD, shoppers were encouraged to bring their own shopping bags. Otherwise, they could purchase reusable bags available at the participating supermarkets or voluntarily donate 10 cents for each plastic bag taken at the checkout counters. Shoppers were also encouraged to decline plastic bags when purchasing only a few small items. Proceeds from the donation went to SEC, a registered charity, with the donations collected used to fund campaign and other environmental programmes.

Surveys during the monthly BYOBDs revealed that on average about 60% of shoppers participated either by bringing their own bags, buying reusable bags, making donations for checkout bags needed, or declining checkout bags when making small purchases. About two thirds of shoppers surveyed also supported a more frequent BYOBD – e.g. weekly of even daily.

The major supermarkets, with the support of the Singapore Environment Council and NEA, had therefore taken the next step of holding BYOBD every Wednesday starting from 4 June 2008.

Participating supermarkets included Carrefour, Cold Storage, Giant, NTUC FairPrice, Prime Supermarket, Sheng Siong, Shop N Save.

Do remember to bring your own bags the next time you go shopping!

Remember also to:

1. Decline bags for small purchases
2. Ask the cashiers to pack more purchases into the bags
3. Ask the cashiers to avoid double-bagging
4. Buy a reusable bag if you still don’t own one