Each Portuguese uses 466 plastic bags per year

Every year, more than eight billion plastic bags are thrown away, in Europe, according to the European Commissioner responsible for the Environment folder, Janez Potocnik, who explains that these cause "high environmental damage" and the continent's biodiversity.

In Portugal, the European Union estimates that each citizen use 466 plastic bags per year, a number identical, for example, to Poland and Slovakia. Although the data relating to the use of plastic bags in the various Member States are very diverse, it cause amazement the number of lightweight plastic bags used each year in Denmark and Finland: about four per citizen.

As Green explained, the European Union Savers will leave each country to choose such measures as it considers most appropriate to tackle this scourge, including the application of rates, the establishment of national targets of reducing or prohibiting of use.

"Some Member States have already achieved great results in reducing the use of plastic bags. If others follow this example, we could reduce the current global use in the European Union by 80%, "explain the Commissioner of the environment.

The proposal obliges Member States to adopt measures to reduce the use of plastic bags with a thickness of less than 50 microns, insofar as these are used less often than the thicker plastic bags, being the first mostly soon placed in the trash. Those measures may include the use of economic instruments, such as application fees, establishment of national targets for reducing and marketing restrictions (subject to the rules of the internal market of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union).

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