Following the success of the awareness campaign that took place in March and April 2009, the Environment Ministry and the Embassy have decided to embark in another, more ambitious campaign.  In this case, consumers will be encouraged to change the way they behave in relation to the use (and sometimes abuse) of plastic bags.  

It will also recommend to use re-usable bags made of non-plastic material. The campaign (with clear link to climate change) will be heard on commercial and community radios; seen in bus shelters and on buses in Montevideo and on the sea front in Colonia and Punta del Este.  We have also created a dedicated website "Sacá la bolsa del medio" with information for customers and shops on the measures they can take as individuals or as an organisation.  The Embassy has also made eco-friendly, re-usable bags to distribute among contacts.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - if we can reduce, there will be less need to reuse, and even less need to recycle.

The campaign will encourage people to take responsibility and to think differently: every little change in the right direction will make a difference.  We have to act together, now, to leave a better world to our children.

UK supermarkets have adopted different policies to reduce the amount of plastic bags used by their customers. Read here what the most popular supermarkets are doing. These actions have been supported by the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has also supported the introduction of a plastic bag tax.

Did you know that…

• Uruguayans use over 400 plastic bags per person per year?
• Scientists have concluded that it will take approximately 150 years for a plastic bag to disappear?

At the project launch Ambassador Patrick Mullee told the press "when we launched the campaign in March 2009, we exhibited several re-usable bags brought from the UK.  Today we are pleased to be able to have reusable bags collected from Uruguayan shops, some of them made in Uruguay".