plastic bag peril
The Retail Association, Progressive and Foodstuffs are banding together to work on the reduction of plastic bags. Which is good, and a long way from earlier in the year!
Nandor praised them, and the NDU reminded us of the intersection between social justice and environmentalism.
Not sure how your local supermarket performs, but whenever frog pops over to Thorndon New World, we’ve been horrified that the previously accessible racks of reusable bags have been moved from the logical position just in front of the check out, to be only available on repeated request. Why? Surely there’s no benefit to the supermarket to give you their plastic version?
And how many of your councils will take bags for recycling? Not Frog’s (WCC).
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June 26th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Kapiti Coast takes them. I’m hoping they also recycle them. I use a lot less since keeping a few of the carry bags and a chilly bin on hand in the car boot.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Woolworths Kilbirnie are diligent about asking if I want a bag, if I buy three items or fewer. But the moment I have four items, even if they’re really smal ones, they put them in a bag if I’m not quick enough in telling them not to.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Ah, the old plastic bag menace. While I suppose every little bit counts, and it is disappointing to hear about the plastic pollution, at least plastic bags do break down eventually in sunlight.
The ultimate answer, as far as I’m concerned is incineration. We don’t seem to be able to reduce, reuse or recycle, so at least we can get the embodied energy back and minimise the waste products without filling in a valley somewhere.
It’s like the landfill gas projects but without the landfill
June 28th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Yeah, I’m getting out-of-breath from training every check-out operator I meet, to put my stuff in the bags I supply, which is why they go on the counter in front of the goods I’m purchasing… *sigh*. Kids these days…
‘Course it would help if the supermarket didn’t sack them all every 3 months or so, then there might be some institutional memory building up in the workforce there.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Of course if branded plastic bags were still an insignificant expense the supermarkets wouldn’t be colluding and conspiring to start charging customers for what has been a free service.
Its not really a victory for the GP so much as a victory for freemarket greenies.
June 28th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
our supermarket isint charging for plastic bags, we are starting to charge 99 cents for material ones though. we have always been pretty low in plastic bag use at our new worlds though, the owner of the store still complains at christmas when more bags are used, though thats just cause it costs him more
supermarkets dont fire them every 3 months, they tend to leave after afew weeks, i know on checkout at our store at one point we were loosing the majority of new staff within a month and had old ones leaving also, the staff quality decreases very rapidly
Sapient
July 4th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
I have been taking my own bags to supermarkets for years. Going to Pak’N Save is often a nice experience when I see many people using bags that they have brought along. At other supermarkets, it seems that more and more people are using green material bags, which is great.
It seems to me that the material at the “earlier in the year” link may be making some useful points, e.g. around food waste. It may identify some further issues around the use of plastic.
I hope that Nandor’s Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill will make a good and substantial difference “on the ground” in NZ. We individuals can do a lot now, in any case.
August 19th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
It often infuriates me that supermarkets charge for the more reusable bags and give plastic ones away free! Surely it would make sense to reverse this or at least reward customers for bringing their own or using the more eco bags.
The very least supermarkets could do is to train checkout staff to not just assume every customer wants to use plastic and automatically pack our shopping in plastic. The amount of odd looks we get from staff for bringing our own bags and packing them ourselves is incredible!
An easy way to cut down on the appalling plastic bag waste would be for all supermarkets (and other stores) to follow PaknSave’s example and simply not supply plastic bags - it’s not rocket science!
August 20th, 2007 at 12:11 am
ecomonkey - Paknsave do it because it’s a good marketing gimmick and reduces their wages bill. All the other supermarkets redesigned their checkouts and eliminated their bag-packers. Don’t worry, when the price of plastic begins to affect their bottom lines they’ll start charging, then you won’t find yourself in the minority any more.
February 13th, 2008 at 5:12 am
@ecomonkey
Very true, if branded eco-friendly bags were given away like the plastic ones I think everyone would benefit. unfortunatly the markets aren’t prepared to do that, yet. Let’s just hope public pressure forces their hand, if one chain were to do this and shopper started making the point with their wallets, changing where they shop, every chain going would give free branded eco-friendly bags out very quickly.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I’m glad someone thought this story was worthy of a post. In my opinion the best thing we should do is to ban the plastic shopping bags at all. There is alternatives and I’m pretty sure once the plastic bags is banned manufacturers will come with brilliant ideas. For example, plastic shopping bags are illegal in South Africa anyway because of environmental reasons and nothing happens so why we can’t banned it.