Nguyen Trung Thang, deputy head of the Vietnam Natural Resources and Environment Ministry’s Institute of Strategy and Policy on National Resources and Environment, said that the ban will also include wet markets.

The news agency reported Thang as saying that manufacturers are currently looking at making changes to technology to meet the government regulations and address the growing market demand.

ISPONRE noted that Vietnamese supermarkets collectively use up to 104,000 single-use plastic bags every day on average.

In addition, 46 out of 48 supermarkets in the country said in a survey that they provide plastic bags free of charge, with each of them using 1,454 plastic bags a day.

A report by the World Bank found that Vietnamese people used around 3.9 million tonnes of plastic a year, with only 1.28 million tonnes of this being recycled.

The plan to implement the ban comes after an ISPONRE representative announced last month that supermarkets and retailers would be fined for offering single-use plastic bags to customers from 2026.

Vietnam aims to use fully environmentally friendly bags at all its stores and supermarkets by 2025.

The Vietnamese Government has approved several policies that aim to meet this target, including its National Strategy on Integrated Management of Solid Waste to 2025.

In December 2020, the government co-launched the Vietnam National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP), which aims to reduce the flow of plastic waste into the ocean.

The NPAP was founded in collaboration with the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Plastic Action Partnership.

It has developed a roadmap to help remove single-use plastic and non-biodegradable plastic bags from cities, coastal tourist destinations and marine-protected areas.

According to packaging-gateway.com