Bulgaria's 264 Municipalities Rally En Bloc against Plastic Bags

Pictured: A typical view of the Bulgarian landscape - plastic bags "decorate" a tree outside of Varna after they were carried by the wind. Photo by BGNES

All 264 municipal mayors in Bulgaria have decided to stage a "day without plastic bags" on July 29, 2011.

The the municipalities have rallied behind the idea to take serious measures against the use of plastic bags at a meeting of the National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria.

Each municipality is going to decide for itself how to take part in the campaign.

"All 264 municipalities will save at least one ton of plastic bags for just one day," explained the Mayor of the western town of Slivnitsa Georgi Georgiev who initiated the campaign.

According to the Environment Ministry, some 3.2 billion plastic bags are used in Bulgaria every year. A huge number of them can be seen blown around by the wind or carried around Bulgarian cities by stray dogs.

In March 2011, the Bulgarian Parliament adopted a "plastic bag tax" of BGN 0.15 on the smallest and most popular plastic bags in order to force the large retail chains to stop distributing them for free. The tax will kick in as of October 2011.

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