The Tribune

The Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) says straw artisans can exploit the ban on single-use plastic bags to increase their own sales by creating alternatives.

Debbie Strachan, BAIC’s acting general manager, said it will when promote the ban when its Farmers Market series resumes on January 18 in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Housing.

“As the talk began on the initiative last year to ban plastic, we had a mega Farmers Market where we were able to introduce reusable bags to our patrons and we gave away hundreds of bags on that particular Saturday,” Ms Strachan said.

She added that BAIC has been selling straw tote-shopping bags at the Farmers Market, and many patrons used that opportunity to prepare for the plastic ban. Ms Strachan said BAIC saw this as a way to help Bahamian artisans increase their sales through replacing single-use plastic bags with handcrafted straw tote bags

Two artisans working to fill orders for straw shopping bags are Agatha Mackey and Keisha Pratt.

Ms Mackey said persons involved in plaiting straw will benefit tremendously, and added: “I think it is going to be an exciting time going forward because it is another earning capacity for artisans, and it will take the straw industry to another level because there will be a demand for the bags.”

Ms Pratt said: “I have already had orders come in for extra large bags with style, colours and class.... We are going to implement it step by step. We are going to get it done and it’s going to be good.”

The Environmental Protection (Control of Plastic Pollution) Act 2019 came into effect on January 1. The Act mandates that companies have until June 30, 2020, to run down their inventories of the banned products on the condition that the single-use plastic bags are sold to customers for a fee between 25 cents to $1.