Buenos Aires is taking steps to get plastic shopping bags out of the city with a regulation that will slowly take the product away from store checkouts.

Following in the province of Buenos Aires’ footsteps, the regulation will implement a series of steps to gradually replace plastic bags. The first tier came into effect on 19th June, when people should have stopped receiving plastic bags from kiosks, pharmacies and deliveries.

From the beginning of August, supermarkets and convenience stores will have to provide biodegradable equivalents to plastic bags or incentives for people who bring their own bags.

The move is a step toward reducing waste in the city of Buenos Aires, which sends 6,000 tonnes of garbage to landfill each day. The issue of rubbish disposal has been a hot topic in the last few months, as the province of Buenos Aires, where the landfills are located, debates a bill that, if passed, will gradually decrease the amount of waste entering the province. From January 2014, no waste would be allowed to enter the province from another district.

Although the law in question – 3147 – was passed in 2009, the city just resolved to regulate it. In its 9th May official bulletin, the city announced the approval of the schedule that would remove plastic bags from checkouts.

Resolution 155/APRA/12 reads that the law “aims to promote the production of biodegradable bags” and “the gradual reduction and subsequent ban on non-biodegradable bag use by businesses.”

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The official bulletin also notes “that the plan should also consider the conversion of the biodegradable bag manufacturing sector, developing a schedule for the gradual replacement of non-biodegradable bags with biodegradable bags as well as awareness campaigns for the population.”

The only industries exempt from the law are those that require plastic bags for sanitary reasons, like meat and vegetable sellers and the hospital sector.

Exemptions will also be made for supermarkets and convenience stores that supply customers with new bags that are 55cm wide and 60cm high, 50% of which are green and 50% of which are black. The move is an attempt to get people to recognise the need to separate garbage into biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste.

Stores who wish to use paper bags must follow other regulations as well, according to the city’s website.

“They must be made ​​with certified paper to ensure environmental sustainability in its production cycle,” it says, noting the paper must follow international certification systems, be made from alternatives like cane sugar or be made with least 80% recycled paper.

The plastic bag ban means the Argentine capital is joining a slew of cities around the world that are banning plastic bags, including Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Mumbai among many others.

Ecoexist is a company that makes eco-friendly bags in Argentina. “The ecological bags have many advantages,” Ecoexist member Sebastián Javelier says in a blog post, publicised on the company’s site, which notes the city’s new stance. “The main one is that the consumer is fully aware that an environmental problem exists, but doesn’t know quite what to do as an individual. These bags intuitively help to reduce garbage, one of the three most important problems of urban life, along with water care and disposal of batteries and electronic waste.”

The province of Buenos Aires moved to limit the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags in 2008, and gave stores a two-year period to adjust before enforcing the law.

To find out what locals think about the initiative, click here.

New regulations will allow farmers to rent more land from the government in an attempt to increase food production in Cuba. “Those persons or lease holders that have really shown they can produce, will be able to increase their land,” said top agricultural official, William Hernandez Morales.

Currently, farmers are allowed to lease 13 hectares. With the new legislation, this amount will be increased 67 hectares.

The state owns 70% of the arable land in Cuba, and private farmers own the other 30 %. Private farmers produce 57% of the food in the country.

Since taking over in 2008, president Raul Castro has tried to increase food production by turning over 1.6 million hectares of land to farmers.

The Cuban government has also recently allowed foreign investment in the country. “The assimilation of foreign investment guarantees access to markets for Cuban goods and services,” said Foreign Trade and Investment minister Rodrigo Malmierca.

Last night the House of Representatives passed a law concerning the regulating private health insurance plans.

The law of regulating the system of prepaid medical care, past by 190 votes to zero and provides new benefits for users, but is resisted by the major part of the private sector of companies.

The 190 votes were supported by the greater number of parties, while 29 votes, mainly from the ‘PRO’ and the ‘Coalición Cívica (CC)’, were abstained.

The bill provides that, after a certain number of years of contributions, the prepaid may not increase fees for the older members; age can not be a criterion for rejecting the admission. The contributions of younger members will widely redeem the gap.

The House accepted the changes made by the Senate last year, which were voted on the original penalty in 2008 by the House. It is a draft framework which Congress already tried to discuss for several years in a way to regulate the activities of private companies that provide medical services for more than four million people in the country.

“This law creates a regulatory framework and was not an activity which, besides being an activity for profit, concerned a good basic for social protection without control”, according to the legislator.

Radicalist Agustín Portela, vice president of the commission of the House of Health, stated that the topic “has a strong social implication” but questioned some points, arguing that “it was not armed with the sense of establishing a regulatory ensure a balance of prepaid system works.”

According to Graciela Camano, of the Peronist block, this law “is going to succeed in changing the status of the patients, who will stop to be users and instead will become patients.” She added that this will be an important step.

Claudio Lozano, the deputy of the party ‘Proyecto Sur’, emphasised that: “This law is necessary,” and he stressed the importance of market regulation of private health insurance plans and said it is “a step up from the current situation.”

In contrary, deputy of the ‘ PRO’, Gabriela Michetti considered that the rule “creates a significant risk of declining quality of services of one of the subsystems and ignores the other subsystems.”

The law, must be regulated by the Executive Power within 120 days after its publication, while companies will have a period of 180 days for the adaptation of this framework.