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Berlin (dpa) - From 2022, plastic shopping bags will no longer be allowed in German supermarkets.
The Bundestag has passed a corresponding ban.
After a transition period, which was extended from six to twelve months at the urging of the trade, lightweight plastic carrier bags with a wall thickness between 15 and 50 micrometers are banned - these are the standard bags that you usually get at the checkout.
Particularly stable reusable bags and the thin plastic bags that can be found in the fruit and vegetable department are excluded from the ban.
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"The plastic bag is the epitome of wasting resources," said Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD), who initiated the sales ban.
"Good alternatives are shopping baskets, washable cloth bags for fruit and vegetables and reusable boxes for goods from the fresh produce counter."
For the environmental organization WWF, however, the ban is only symbolic.
Plastic bags account for just one percent of German plastic consumption.
Even leftists and Greens in the Bundestag are not ambitious enough.
The environmental policy spokeswoman for the Green Group, Bettina Hoffmann, spoke of a drop in the bucket: "Unfortunately, this mini-law will not stop the trend towards disposable packaging."
AfD and FDP, on the other hand, see the measure as an unjustified intervention in the market without demonstrable benefits for the environment.
The AfD MP Andreas Bleck pointed out, among other things, that a voluntary regulation of plastic bag consumption in Germany has fallen by almost two thirds within a few years.
The plastic bag ban is therefore "the most senseless environmental policy ban of this legislative period".
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201126-99-479353 / 2