Mall bags green image for Christmas

An Auckland shopping mall is urging shoppers to exchange old plastic bags for a reusable replacement to cut waste this Christmas.

New Lynn's LynnMall expects at least 20,000 plastic bags to be exchanged for the 4000 reusable bags it will give out over Christmas. Similar schemes operate in Australia.

The reusable bags, made of recycled plastic, were designed by Avondale College students.

It is estimated that New Zealanders use more than 2.2 million plastic bags each week.