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Abstract:
The world has noticed strong evidence on rising plastic bag consumption, as well as its harmful impacts to the environment, wildlife and human health. In terms of the European Union, new Directive was introduce to combat extremely high consumption of single-use plastic bags in member countries. In regard of the Slovak legislation, the National Council is currently approving new proposal banning free distribution of plastic bags which is probable to come into force in 2019. The paper offers analysis of two scenarios for introducing a new charging mechanism to reduce single-use plastic bag consumption in the Slovak Republic. The author emphasizes the Scenario 1 where all retailers are included in the mechanism, as it provides society with higher benefits than the Scenario 2 where large retailers are exempt from imposing a charge on plastic bag sale. All in all, the policy option of imposing a levy on single-use plastic bag consumption in Slovakia will meet Eu targets and will be in compliance with the Directive 2015/720.
Keywords: single-use plastic carrier bags; consumption reduction of SUPB; policy options; impact analysis; consumption scenarios
JEL Classification: Q530; Q580
Introduction
The EU Directive 2015/720 recognizes that plastic bags belong to the category of waste packaging, thus they are also a subject to the Directive 94/62/EC. However, consumption of plastic carrier bags and their regulation within the Directive 94/62/EC is not enough executed as they nowadays represent a wide-spreading challenge towards environmental degradation including water and soil ecosystem, air pollution, wildlife and human health. According to the EU statistics, the stomachs of 94% of all birds in the North Sea area contain plastic (European Commission 2013b). Generally speaking, to produce 12 plastic bags requires the same amount of energy as driving a car for a mile. Even though an average lifetime of a plastic bag is about 12 minutes, it takes up to 1 000 years to decompose (Knight 2012). There are plenty of negative impacts of plastic bags to the environment, health and the economy. According to Equinox Center (2013), the decomposition process of a plastic bag can last about 450 years in the sea water or up to 1 000 years by radian energy (daily sunlight). What is more, in 2005, plastic bags created 73 %...