Hao Mart and Ang Mo Supermarket no longer required to charge for plastic bags

Supermarket chains Hao Mart and Ang Mo Supermarket are no longer required to charge patrons for plastic bags after being deregistered from the disposable carrier bag charge scheme.

Responding to queries from AsiaOne, the the National Environment Agency (NEA) said that the two supermarket operators successfully applied to withdraw from the scheme at the end of 2025.

Both operators were able to withdraw from the scheme because their annual turnover for each of the last three years did not exceed the threshold of $100 million under the Resource Sustainability Act.

They were initially enrolled in the scheme — first introduced in July 2023 — which required supermarket operators to charge a minimum of five cents for each disposable carrier bag provided.

Being deregistered from the scheme also means that Hao Mart and Ang Mo Supermarket will no longer need to report to NEA on the number of carrier bags issued or the proceeds collected from their issuance.

While they are no longer obliged to charge for issuing plastic bags, the choice to charge customers will be at their discretion, said NEA.

Currently, supermarket operators such as Cold Storage, FairPrice and Don Don Donki are among the eight grocery chains that are still enrolled in the scheme, according to NEA's website.

Under the scheme, registered operators are required to publish information annually on the number of disposable carrier bags supplied, amount of proceeds collected, and how the proceeds are used.

They are also strongly encouraged to channel the proceeds from the bag charge to environmental or social causes. 

Based on Hao Mart's report for 2024, a total of $21,143.50 was collected for its distribution of 422,870 disposable carrier bags throughout the year. 

The operator noted that none of the proceeds went towards charitable purposes. Instead, the funds were channelled towards Goods and Service Tax payment to government in addition to the company's general operating expenses.

According to NEA, supermarket operators who started charging for disposable carrier bags reported a 70 to 80 per cent reduction in the number of bags issued at their supermarket outlets.

NEA also shared that over $6 million was collected by supermarket operators from 129 million disposable carrier bags provided in 2024.

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dana.leong@asiaone.com