The 3rd July was the international Plastic Bag Free Day. Approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide each year but although most of those are only used for an average of 20 minutes, each bag can take between 500 and 1,000 years to decompose.

In order to understand individuals’ attitudes towards single use plastic shopping bags in Cyprus, Kykloikodromio conducted a short survey explore such issues. The survey was open from the 3rd of July 2024 until the 15th of July 2024 and had 69 responses. Most individuals who completed the survey were female (65,2%). Moreover, 71% of participants were above 40 years old and 23,2% were between 30-39 years old.

Results indicated that whilst about half of the participants rarely/never buy plastic shopping bags (52,5%), some participants sometimes do (33,3%), a few buy plastic bags most of the time (11,6%) and only 2,9% of participants always buy them.

Moreover, almost all participants (95,7%) are aware of the negative environmental impact of plastic bags. Only 1,4% of participants were unaware of the negative environmental impacts of plastic bags with the remaining 2,9% being unsure.

When exploring what might prevent the usage of reusable shopping bags, almost half of the participants (49,3%) stated that nothing prevents them from using reusable shopping bags. The other half (44,9%) mentioned forgetting to bring them as their main reasoning, with a small number of participants also noting wanting single use plastic bags for other uses (5,8%).

When exploring purchasing behaviours, results indicated that when purchasing reusable shopping bags, most individuals (60,3%) choose “reusable environmentally friendly bags (e.g. cotton, canvas bag, etc.)”. Some participants indicated that they just buy whatever is available in the store (25%) and a few indicated that they do not pay attention to the material bags are made of (10,3%), and some just buy the cheapest option (2,9%). Only 1,5% of participants indicated that they choose paper bags.

Lastly, results indicated that almost half of the participants believe that reusable plastic shopping bags should be banned (49,3%), whereas a quarter of participants indicated that they are not sure (26,1%) and the other quarter disagreed (24,6%).

Key results:

• Most people who participated in the survey are aware of the negative environmental impacts of plastic bags.

• The main reason that prevents consumers from always using reusable bags for shopping is that they neglect to carry them with them.

• When buying reusable shopping bags, most individuals make environmentally friendly choices.

• Half of the participants believe that reusable plastic shopping bags should be banned, while the other half are not sure or disagree with the ban.