Singapore’s obsession with plastic bags shows no sign of slowing. Thank goodness then for brands like Peco bag; it’s taking action to reduce single-use waste with its reusable designs made from recycled bottles.
I vividly remember the first time I went to a grocery store in Singapore (despite it being six years ago). Not because of the array of jaw-droppingly expensive fruit ($240 for a bunch of grapes?! $74 for strawberries?!), or the weird things you could get in tins (WTF is abalone? Sit down foodies, I have since been formally introduced to this ‘delicacy’). But instead, it was the abundance of plastic that truly blew my mind.
Fruits wrapped in layers of cellophane or individually bagged. Why? Bananas, oranges, limes; all things that have their own natural packaging (i.e. skin or peel). I couldn’t get my head around it. And then, of course, the bags. Oh, the bags. Handed out like sweeties at the till, double-bagging single items seemingly for fun. I come from the UK so don’t get me wrong; we ain’t perfect, far from it. But to go from a nation where a ‘bag for life’ is standard and paying for plastic bags is the norm, it was genuinely shocking to see the difference in attitude towards single-use plastic bags.
And it’s still a problem today…
Fast forward to 2020, and Singapore’s addiction to single-use plastic shows no sign of slowing. This 2018 report calculates that 820 million supermarket plastic bags are used each year. And in August 2020, Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, stated that Singapore is “not in a hurry” to ban plastic bags. Thankfully, the conscious community on the Little Red Dot is growing at pace, and individuals are taking matters into their own hands.
Enter Peco Bag
The brainwave of Yumika Hoskin, Peco bag stands by the mantra “change a habit, change the world’. And purchasing just one could save you using 125 plastic bags per year. How’s that for an easy #LittleGreenStep?
Created using recycled plastic bottles, the lightweight bags are available in a variety of cute prints. Plus they fold easily into a teeny pouch making it easy to carry with you at all times. Meaning you’ll never get caught short at the checkout again. Each one can carry up to 10kg making it the perfect bag for groceries, gym kit, or… cats.
Get your hands on one here and become a Peco hero.
*Lead image and video by Harsha Poojari