If you have been in UAE these past few weeks, you may be familiar with the UAE’s new single-use plastic ban policy.
In June 2022, Abu Dhabi announced a ban on single-use plastic bags to limit plastic pollution and encourage shoppers to opt for reusable alternatives. In July 2022, Dubai announced
a tariff of 25 fils on single-use plastic bags with a complete ban on these bags in two years.
These developments have been years in the making. For the past six years, the team at Emirates Nature-WWF has supported corporates and retailers through our Rethink Plastic initiative, which helps organisations reduce their reliance on single-use plastic and shift consumer mindsets.
Through the Rethink Plastic initiative, we have been asking partners across the UAE to:
• Discourage the limitless use of single-use plastic bags by adding an
incremental cost by encouraging customers to opt for reusable bags
• Contribute to Emirates Nature-WWF conservation work which helps fight the climate and nature loss crisis.
The announcement of the single-use plastic ban has been a moment of great joy and celebration for our team, our pioneering partners and all the individuals and organisations that have been working towards this behind the scenes for the past decade.
While conscious consumers, millennials and Gen Z are also cheering the move, some individuals and businesses may still be wondering – why so much fuss around plastic?
• People use too much plastic. In 2019, the UAE created 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic. That’s 16,600 times the weight of the Burj Khalifa. It’s unfathomable. People in the UAE use 11 billion plastic bags a year, or around 1,184 bags per person.
That’s nearly four times the global average of 307 plastic bags per person per year. Both figures seem excessive, especially when our plastic consumption has such negative consequences for people and planet. What’s more? Well, by 2050, it’s estimated there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans.
• Plastic doesn’t go away. Plastic takes years – often hundreds of years – to decompose. Despite our best efforts, 91 percent of plastic does not get recycled globally. Instead, plastic debris seeps its way into land and seas, causes the premature death of millions of marine animals, and embeds itself everywhere – even in the human body.
• Plastic is detrimental to marine life. Plastic is damaging for the health and well-being of all living things and it’s terrible for business – particularly for fishing, hospitality and economies that depend on marine tourism.
The three reasons above demonstrate how plastic is detrimental to our climate and biodiversity, which has in turn, helped shape the mechanics of the Emirates Nature-WWF Rethink Plastic initiative, that revolves around the below pillars:
• People want to change. Research has consistently found that people – especially the younger generations – want to contribute to a more sustainable future that prioritises people and nature.
A 2021 BCG study found that 65 percent of UAE consumers are prepared to incorporate more sustainable actions into their daily lives. In fact, a 2022 survey found that 85 percent of Dubai respondents support the emirate’s new plastic policy. The era of conscious consumerism is here.
• Businesses have a tremendous role to play. We are used to reading about the negative impact of business activity. Like the fact that 20 companies are responsible for about half of the world’s single-use plastic waste.
But corporates also have a vital, positive role to play in ensuring a green recovery – as we have seen in our work to establish a circular economy in the UAE and to minimise plastic waste. As part of the Rethink Plastic initiative, our partners make consumers pause and question their habit to pick single-use plastic bags by charging an incremental cost per bag. This simple fee encourages customers to opt for reusable bags – and has been remarkably successful.
Our Rethink Plastic partners are making a significant impact in the UAE through their plastic initiatives and their contributions to Emirates Nature-WWF conservation projects that help fight climate change and nature loss. We want to congratulate these pioneering partners for facilitating an easy adaptation for all UAE’s retail sector by having warmed up consumers and paved the way.
Geant, which was our first Rethink Plastic partner six years ago, continues to pioneer the shift away from plastic. Geant recently launched a dedicated section in all supermarkets and hypermarkets where customers can buy packaging alternatives such as jute and woven bags.
Within two weeks of joining the initiative, Waitrose reported that customers had used 100,000 fewer plastic bags and had actually bought 5,700 reusable bags (much more than the 60 reusable bags sold in the same period the year prior).
Spinneys started introducing eco-friendly alternatives as well as a ‘bag exchange point’ where shoppers can collect and drop off used bags. Choithrams has had similarly inspiring results since it joined the initiative last year – in 365 days, 2.9 million plastic bags were saved.
H&M renewed their partnership on the initiative, and ditched plastic in favour of 100 percent recycled paper bags and are aligning our customers with the H&M vision of becoming 100 percent circular and climate positive by 2040.
On World Environment Day 2022, Carrefour came onboard and introduced limited-edition eco-friendly reusable bags that feature local threatened marine species. Customers can scan an attached QR code to learn more about each species and part of the proceeds go towards Emirates Nature-WWF’s conservation efforts in the UAE.
Sustainability is great for the bottom line. A study by Accenture found that companies with consistently high ratings for environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance outperformed their peers with 3.7 times higher operating margins and 2.6 times higher annual total returns to shareholders. Sustainability is great for people, planet and business performance. Now that’s a win-win-win!