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An Australian Government move to scrap plastic bags has brought the issue to the forefront in New Zealand again.
Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett said last week that he hoped to get rid of plastic bags completely by the end of the year.
"We want to phase them out, so do the [individual Australian] states. We think it's absolutely critical that we get cracking on it," Mr Garrett said.
China also made progress in the battle against bags, banning free plastic shopping bags and calling for a return to cloth bags.
The action abroad has prompted Kiwis to think again about the question, "Do you need a bag?" after supermarket chains Foodstuffs and Progressive Enterprises announced a joint campaign last June to cut back on bags handed out in their stores.
The Make a Difference campaign, which stemmed from a 2004 accord signed by Government, retailers and environment groups, with the aim of reducing New Zealand's use of plastic bags, involved 646 supermarkets around the country. Check-out operators in shops reminded customers to think twice before taking plastic bags, and encouraged them to use reusable shopping bags instead.
Retailers Association spokesman Barry Hellberg said he believed the campaign had worked well in raising consumer awareness.
"If you go into a supermarket now there are a greater number of people using reusable bags, which is implicit to me that the campaign is working."
Speaking on Radio New Zealand, Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said that although the high use of plastic bags was something that needed to be tackled, she did not think it was the most important environmental problem Mr Garrett could have dealt with at such an early stage.
She also said her party's approach would differ from Australia's decision to ban the bags outright.
"If [bags] were charged for at a decent rate - supposing they were charged at a dollar each - then when people really, really needed them they would buy them and when they didn't really, really need them they'd take their own shopping bag."
Greenpeace spokeswoman Bunny McDiarmid said she wasn't sure which way was best to cut plastic bag use, but said it had to be done.
"It's like most things - most of the product and packaging is passed on and we never pay the real cost. It just gets passed on to the environment or future generations, and that's not okay," she said.
"Whichever mechanism you choose, either charging people to buy the plastic bags or banning them outright so people bring other bags, as long as the end result is something that decreases the effect on the environment, I think it's a good thing."
- NZPA
