Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Crimea will initiate a denial of trade networks in Russia from plastic bags and replace them on the paper. This was stated by Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Crimea Gennady Nara.

– Tomorrow will hold the first meeting with the heads of commercial networks and offer to go with plastic bags to paper – Nara said. – I think we will come to a positive solution. We oblige to use since 2017 – the year of ecology – use later paper bags for packaging products. We will perform such a legislative initiative as the subject of the Russian Federation, at the state level to ban polyethylene packaging.

First in Crimea encouraged local entrepreneurs to go to work with a paper packaging administration Feodosiya.

– In this direction, we are preparing a whole program, – the head Stanislav Krysin administration. – These measures will reduce the volume of municipal solid waste and facilitate their processing. After all, polyethylene is not subject to the processes of biological decomposition, while its collapse may be hundreds of years old.

For the Crimea as a resort region the issue of reducing the consumption of polyethylene, which pollutes not only the land but also the sea, is very relevant. Followed whether for Feodosia other cities and towns of the peninsula, is still unknown. But for the implementation of paper packaging have long been environmentalists and manufacturers.

– The demand for paper bags is not high. While sellers and manufacturers themselves realize that it is necessary to fight for the environment. But the plastic bag several times cheaper than paper. And the widespread rejection of plastic packaging and reduce the cost of paper, you need to subsidizing enterprises, – says Sergey Evseev manufacturer.

According to him, until the paper packaging in demand mainly in the shops of shoes, clothing, fast food, pastry shops and restaurants. In most cases, buyers receive packages with manufacturer’s logo as a gift.

Sergei Yevseyev also noted that local businesses are willing to provide the Crimea paper packaging. But they are hard to compete with the mainland companies due to expensive shipping raw materials to the peninsula. For example, a kilo of paper is worth 50 rubles. On the peninsula of her being taken from Tatarstan, so the price increase by 12-15 rubles per kilogram. However, some plants are ready to cooperate only when ordering a minimum quantity of 20 tonnes of paper. While local businesses have to only 5 – 10 tons.

You also need new equipment Crimean producers.

– New machine for the manufacture of paper bags is 200-300 thousand euros, to recover it, it is necessary to lay it at the cost of the package. In Russia, there are examples where such production helps budget – compensates for any part of the cost of the equipment, or the interest rate on the loan for its purchase, – says Sergey Evseev.

The head of the association “Crimea Commerce” Sergey Makeev noted that employers generally favor a partial waiver of plastic packaging. But he believes that this project is necessary to sign a memorandum between the retail chains, shops and manufacturers of packages. In this document it is necessary to prescribe the conditions under which the introduction of paper bags in the trade will be beneficial to both parties.

Opinions of Crimeans about this initiative dispersed. Some believe that when buying groceries at the supermarket for a thousand rubles, the cost of the package – 5.10 rubles is unlikely someone will confuse. Others say that for pensioners and low-income people who buy goods in the 100-200 rubles, this price can be quite substantial.