In accordance with the decision of the Ministry of Environment and Water of the UAE, manufacturers and suppliers of plastic packaging will be obliged to start production of polyethylene bags that are completely biodegradable and meet the standards of the UAE Standardization and Metrology Department and ECAS from the beginning of next year.
According to Dr. Rashid Ahmad bin Fahad, Minister of Environment and Water of the UAE, this resolution of the authorities is fully consistent with the policy and strategy of the Ministry regarding the protection of the country's environment. To make people stop using plastic bags, the ministry also plans to introduce fines, which will be part of a campaign called "UAE without plastic bags." According to recent statistics from the ministry, the UAE uses 11 billion plastic bags per year, while 46.7% of them are biodegradable, 53.3% are not biodegradable and harm the environment.
The Ministry’s strategic plan for the current year was designed to reduce the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by 15%, however, thanks to an effective strategy, this volume was already reduced by 46%.
