Since July 2023, Singapore's largest supermarket chains have been required to charge a minimum of 5 cents for every disposable carrier bag handed out at physical checkout counters - a rule that applies specifically to supermarket operators with annual turnover above S$100 million. Within just the first year of the charge, participating stores reported a 70 to 80 percent drop in the number of disposable bags issued.

Targeting a stubbornly wasteful item

The scale of the underlying problem made the bag a natural first target: Singaporeans were using disposable carrier bags an estimated 820 million times a year, yet these bags had one of the lowest recycling rates of any plastic item in the country's waste stream, with more than 95 percent simply thrown away after only a single use. A product used that frequently and recycled that rarely represented an unusually large, unusually preventable share of the country's overall plastic waste.

Part of a larger national push

The disposable carrier bag charge doesn't exist as a standalone measure - it's one visible, consumer-facing piece of Singapore's much broader Zero Waste Masterplan and the Singapore Green Plan 2030, both aimed squarely at reducing packaging waste and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with disposable products more generally. Choosing the plastic bag as the highest-profile early target made strategic sense: it's the single-use item nearly every household in the country interacts with on almost every single grocery trip, meaning a change here reaches the broadest possible cross-section of the population with minimal need for separate public education campaigns explaining what's changing or why.

Sources

Singapore disposable carrier bag charge cuts plastic bag use by up to 80% - Packaging Gateway
Towards A Zero Waste Nation, Together - Singapore Zero Waste Masterplan