Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. announced that its Group companies UNIQLO and GU will begin charging for shopping bags at all stores in Japan from 1st April.
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Fast Retailing is committed to minimizing the environmental impact of its business while offering products and services customers can use with confidence. With environmental pollution from plastic waste becoming a growing concern worldwide, the company has set a target to reduce the amount of single-use plastic handed to customers in the forms of shopping bag and product packaging at its stores worldwide by 85%, or around 7,800 tons annually, by the end of 2020.
As a part of this initiative, from 1st September, 2019, Fast Retailing stores began switching from plastic shopping bags to eco-friendly paper bags made of FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified* paper or recycled paper. At the same time, all UNIQLO and GU stores in Japan began selling original eco-friendly reusable bags. Along with the introduction of paper shopping bags at all UNIQLO and GU stores in Japan, Fast Retailing is working to reduce the number of shopping bags used overall by charging for bags, and encouraging customers to use their own shopping bags.
Fast Retailing is also making efforts in product packaging, successively eliminating plastic packaging and switching to alternatives such as FSC certified paper. The use of plastic packaging was eliminated for UNIQLO room shoes from the 2019 Fall/Winter season, and from the 2020 Spring/Summer season, paper header-type packaging will be used for certain AIRism products. From the 2020 Fall/Winter season, Fast Retailing plans to switch to alternative packaging materials for UNIQLO’s HEATTECH and certain GU innerwear items.
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Going forward, Fast Retailing will continue its efforts to reduce the use of single-use plastic and other waste throughout its supply chain, by utilizing more recycled materials and promoting the re-use of resources worldwide.
(Source: Fast Retailing )