Tesco Lotus launches “green bag’ campaign in Phuket

PHUKET: Tesco Lotus is gearing up for Earth Day 2012 on Saturday with a special event at its Tesco Thalang mall this afternoon to launch a new campaign to reduce the use of plastic bags at all Tesco stores in Phuket.

Phuket Vice Governor Somkiet Sangkaosutthirak will officially open the event at 2pm.

In addition to fun activities promoting “green lifestyles” by Thai celebrities, the event will feature introductory speeches by Charkrit Direkwattanachai, who heads Tesco Lotus public affairs division, and Boonchai Cheeparanai, director of the retail giant’s operations throughout Southern Thailand.

The pair will outline Tesco’s range of initiatives to reduce plastic bags, including training staff to first ask customers if they actually need plastic bags, setting up special equipment at checkouts to facilitate the use of cloth bags, and offering more rewards to customers who use cloth bags.

“We already reward our customers in Phuket with 20 Green Points for every use of a cloth bag and 500 Green Points for the purchase of a Tesco Green Bag,” said Mr Charkrit.

“From today until May 2 we have reduced the price of the Tesco Green Bag to only 29 baht, and we will give customers an additional 100 Green Points at the last weekend of every month for bringing in reusable bags. We will continue with every means to encourage our customers to use fewer plastic bags, at every store on the island,” added Mr Charkrit.

Tesco Lotus has contributed over 2 million baht in total to promote environmental protection activities in Phuket. This includes donating 1.2 million baht to the Phuket Provincial Energy Office to distribute 30,000 reusable bags to Phuket residents and 890,000 baht to the Energy Seed project, which aims to raise awareness of environmental issues among the youth.

— Stephen Fein