Free bag, or no free bag? That is the question as Hong Kong introduces plastic levy

"Do these items get a free bag?" asks the shopkeeper as she gestures to a tub of frozen chicken wings. Told by a reporter that they do, she points, incredulous, to a vacuum-sealed pack of Japanese enoki mushrooms and says: "Then what about these?"

The frozen food store in Wan Chai where she works is one of more than 100,000 retailers that will fall under the scope of an expanded plastic bag levy scheme. From Wednesday, their customers will have to pay 50 cents per bag, just as they do now at 3,300 retailers, most of them chain stores and supermarkets.

Government officials claimed the levy cut the number of plastic bags going to landfills by up to 90 per cent after its launch in July 2009. Unlike the initial scheme, the independent retailers affected by the expanded levy will not have to pass the cash to the government.

All plastic bags - including bags with plastic handles - will fall under the expanded levy scheme, unless the goods they carry fall under a myriad of exemptions listed by the Environmental Protection Department.

There will be no charge if a bag is needed for "hygiene reasons", for example, or if it is part of a product's original packaging.

Some retailers have switched plastic for paper bags before the levy kicks in.