stores limit sales per person

This is the case of South Korea, where the Government has called for calm due to consumer fears of a possible shortage of garbage bags. In recent days, South Koreans have begun to stockpile this product, and others made of plastic and vinyl materialsdue to the interruption of the national supply of naphtha, a key raw material in the petrochemical industry. And Seoul It imports no more and no less than around 70% of its oil from the Middle East.

The panic of running out of garbage bags is actually justified. In South Korea, the waste management system requires households to use specific plastic bags, designated by each district, for general and organic waste. These bags are sold in supermarkets and local stores, and failure to comply can result in significant fines.

That is why they have become a “first necessity” good, and stores have registered a massive increase in demand, according to the South Korean news agency. Yonhap. The situation has reached the point that some establishments They have limited the sale to only one package per customer.

Given this phenomenon, the Minister of Energy, Kim Sung-whanexplained in a Facebook post that more than half of local governments have enough stock for more than six months and that, “in the worst case scenario,” the use of common bags would be allowed.

However, the South Korean authorities have already begun to implement measures to mitigate the impact of energy shortages and the increase in oil prices. Without going any further, last week the Government implemented a mandatory vehicle rotation system for the public sector. As reported by local media at the time, the cars are divided into groups according to the license plate number, and each of them is prohibited from driving on a given weekday.