SINGAPORE: In their maiden Disposable Carrier Bag Charge (DCBC) report, FairPrice and Sheng Siong supermarkets announced they had channelled more than S$2.26 million in plastic bag fees to support worthy social and environmental causes.
In its report, FairPrice Group mentioned that they were the first local supermarket to introduce a plastic bag charge through a pilot programme at seven FairPrice and Cheers outlets in 2019.
Three years later, the initiative was expanded to 178 Cheers and FairPrice Xpress outlets and 11 supermarkets.
“There is broad recognition that we can reduce wastage of plastic bags. In Singapore, an increasing number of retailers have voluntarily implemented a charge on disposable carrier bags, which has been shown to be effective in encouraging the use of reusables.
For example, FairPrice’s ‘No Plastic Bag’ initiative has saved more than 30 million plastic bags over two years, with seven out of 10 customers willing to bring their own bags,” said Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and Environment in Parliament during the committee of supply debate on Mar 7 2022.
Disposable Carrier Bag Charge initiative was introduced on July 3 2023, under the Resource Sustainability Act 2019, which mandated larger supermarket operators with an annual turnover of more than $100 million to charge their customers a minimum of five cents for each disposable carrier bag of any kind, mainly plastic bags.
The FairPrice Group published their report on Dec 20 for the total DCBC fee collected from NTUC FairPrice Co-operative Ltd, and Cheers Holdings (2004) Pte Ltd.
From July to December 2023, NTUC FairPrice issued 33,630,364 plastic bags, while Cheers issued 58,049. A total of S$1,684,420.65 DCBC fees was collected by both NTUC FairPrice and Cheers, with S$124,771.90 going towards paying for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) at a rate of eight per cent.
Of the total amount collected from the DCBC fee, NTUC FairPrice and Cheers donated S$1,000,000 and $2,687.45, respectively, to FairPrice Foundation, the philanthropic arm of FPG, while the remaining $556,961.30 were distributed by NTUC Fairprice for various environmental sustainability initiatives.
Among the organisations benefiting from the donations is the World Wide Fund for Nature (Singapore) Limited and Zero Waste SG which received $204,312.65 and S$60,000, respectively.
FairPrice Group also allocated $292,648.65 to Lim Kim Hai Electric Co (S) Pte Ltd to promote affordable and clean energy, which aims to implement a proof-of-concept of fast-speed electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure for industrial use at the supermarket distribution centres.
Fairprice Group shared that they hope the proof-of-concept will be able to reduce industrial EV conversion barriers due to lack of charging points and encourage more fleet contractors to convert to EVs.
The supermarket chain also encourages the conversion of 10% of its contracted fleet to EVs.
Sheng Siong Group Limited released its DCBC report on Dec 27, with a total of S$760,106.45 generated from issuing 15,202,129 disposable carrier bags across all their supermarket outlets.
From the amount collected from the DCBC fee, Sheng Shiong donated S$703,802.27 towards the President’s Challenge and paid S$56,304.18 to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore for the eight per cent GST.
Apart from NTUC FairPrice, Cheers, and Sheng Siong, other supermarket operators that are required to impose the disposable carrier bag charge are Cold Storage, Ang Mo Supermarket, Prime Supermarket, Hao Mart, Phoon Huat, Redman by Phoon Huat (both operated by Phoon Huat Pte Ltd).
Don Don Donki, a Japanese-brand speciality store that previously charged customers 10 cents for each plastic bag, took a significant step towards sustainability by ceasing the sale of plastic bags at all its Singapore stores in October this year.