Bangkok--16 Sep--Tesco Lotus
Tesco Lotus is delighted with its customers' response to its campaign to promote no usage of plastic bags. At latest, plastic bags have been reduced by 5 million in less than a month, in the period from August 15 to September 10. Meanwhile, since January 1, 2015, customers have cut their bag usage by 25 million bags at Tesco Lotus stores nationwide. The campaign will continue with confidence of achieving the targets, and big celebrations are planned for communities across Thailand for reducing 20, 30 and 40 million bags.
Tesco Lotus Head of Communications and Sustainability Charkrit Direkwattanachai noted, "Tesco Lotus would like to thank every customer who joined in reducing plastic bags in every format of Tesco Lotus stores. Extra effort has been made since the August 15 start of the plastic bag usage reduction campaign run by the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.
"Tesco Lotus captured plastic bag reduction numbers from August 15 to September 10, and customers managed to reduce over 5 million bags after hearing about the campaign. As an incentive and a way to thank customers who refuse to take a plastic bag, Tesco Lotus will give an additional 150 Green Points on top of the 20 points per receipt, on the 15th and 30th of every month until the end of the year, as the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion has announced the campaign will now run two days every month instead of just one day."
Not only this, but Tesco Lotus is confident of meeting its targets under the government campaign for the 15th and 30th of every month, and reducing 40 million bags in total this year. Tesco Lotus will arrange a celebration of success giving back to communities. For every 20 million bags reduced, Tesco Lotus will plant 20,000 trees around Thailand. For every 30 million bags, trash bags will be given to 300 communities. If the target of 40 million bags is made, Tesco Lotus staff will hold cleaning activities in communities nationwide. The public will be updated with total number of bags reduced since the start of 2015 on billboards around the city.
"Our customers have welcomed not taking a plastic bag by better preparing themselves with cloth and reusable bags. Compared with the period prior to the government campaign, bag reduction increased by 60 percent. What makes people refuse a bag is mostly their increased environmental awareness, which changed customers' behaviour into bringing a reusable bag. Some will just hold their shopping in their hands if there are just a few items, while others will just put products in their cart without a bag and push the cart to their car,which is a welcome trend in Thai shopping.
"Tesco Lotus is already committed to continuously reducing plastic bags. Since the start of 2015 to September 10 we have reduced a total of 25 million plastic bags, 5 million of which were reduced over the period of less than a month with the campaign of the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment."
Tesco Lotus has a policy to operate its business in a way that is responsible to the environment, and particularly in encouraging customers in Green Shopping. The company has been encouraging the use of less plastic bags since 2010. The total number of
since which bags have been reduced by over 50 million under the campaign "Proud not to Use a Plastic Bag".