An exploration into a weekend plastic bag levy in Singapore

Abstract

Excessive plastic bag usage is a serious problem plaguing many countries; Singapore is no exception. To address this, the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) has recommended for an island-wide weekend plastic bag levy. This paper explores the SEC recommendation and suggests implementation only on supermarket retailers, and attempts to gauge the level of public support and worthiness of such a policy. Survey results show that 58.5% do not object to such a levy, while ordered probit regression indicates that strong likelihood of support from those who want governmental action taken. CBA indicates a net benefit of about $4.6 million, mainly from environmental cost savings which outweigh the total social tax. We believe a modified version of the recommendation should be implemented on a small scale to test its effectiveness in changing plastic bag usage behaviour for the better.