A supermarket has stopped giving shoppers plastic bags in a bid to protect the environment. The supermarket owner offers a five per cent discount on shoppers’ bills if they come to shopping with re-useable bags.
Nusmar supermarket owner Mervan Alpergin, 31, said he had decided to convert to re-usable cotton bags after he saw them being used while on a trip to Holland. He said he felt “irritated” when he returned to North Cyprus to find plastic carrier bags strewn across the area near his business, on the border of Girne and Zeytinlik, and has since given away 1,500 of the new hard-wearing bags to customers free of charge.
The bags are produced in Istanbul and Mr Alpergin has said that he will offer a five per cent discount on shoppers’ bills if they if they re-use them in the store. “I want our environment to be clean… as several areas with Girne have become very populated and day by day this number will increase,” Mr Alpergin said.
“People should start working on raising awareness [of the environment]… so that maybe in the future it will become much better through simple steps like I’ve taken. This has in turn pleased many of my customers, specially the foreign ones who are familiar with such alternatives.”
The scheme was praised by Girne Mayor Nidai Güngördü, who said during a meeting with Mr Alpergin that discarded plastic carrier bags could end up in the sea and cause harm to marine life.
A spokesman for Mr Güngördü said: “The mayor was very pleased to receive Mr Alpergin, as we are sensitive towards environmental protection issues, and we congratulate him for taking such an initiative, which we support. We hope other supermarkets will follow his lead and start changing their own use of plastic bags.”
By Yasemin Gülpinar for Cyprus Today
