25 May 2008
Dubai: One of the UAE's most popular supermarkets has started selling reusable jute bags.
Spinneys, which has around 30 branches across the country, has reached an agreement with Dubai-based supplier Enthusiasm as part of its commitment to reduce plastic bag usage.
Enthusiasm has been operating in Dubai for 11 years and supplies several of the city's major retailers including Carrefour, Hyperpanda and Geant.
This comes as Gulf News's campaign Say No to Plastic Bags has gained momentum, prompting a broader Go Green campaign.
Sian Chevasson, Marketing Manager of Spinneys, said: "We offer a number of options to shoppers: reuseable bags, reuseable freezer bags trolleys and now jute bags."
Jute is a soft vegetable fibre that can be spun into coarse, strong threads and is 100 per cent biodegradable.
The Emirates Wildlife Society (EWS) has also announced a nine-month-long environmental educational campaign funded by money collected from charging customers for plastic bags.
The hypermarket chain Geant recently donated Dh150,000, collected from shoppers who pay 25fils for plastic bags used, to the organisation.
The amount is being returned to the community, in the form of environmental education for children through a joint EWS-WWF Enviro-Spellathon drive.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is an independent global conservation organisation that has been working in the field for almost 50 years.
In October, schools across the UAE will be provided bilingual compact discs (CD) and web-based programmes, to be used as teaching aids about the country's environment.
By Kevin Scott, Staff Reporter, and Sanya Nayeem
Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.
