KEY POINTS:
As part of companies improving their "green' image, some shops are now encouraging us to not ask for a plastic or carry bag.
But there may be a price.
DIY giant Bunnings is charging 10c for its plastic bags, saying the move is intended to protect the environment.
This forum debate has now closed. Here is a selection of your views on the topic.
Rich (Japan)
Well done, all shops should charge for plastic bags. Why not also go one step further than Christchurch and encourage people to use them as rubbish sacks as well, as the majority of households do here?
Quincy
Yes, supporting the "no more plastic bags" and use the boxes. Can they just not cutting up the sides of boxes but open them properly so that we can take our shopping in them. The last time I used one, it self torn up and my stuff was all over the car park.
Kiwi in Holland
I live in Holland and one of the first things I noticed with the supermarkets over here is that they all charge for plastic bags. Some as much as 20-50 euro cents but most around 10 euro cents. This has lead people to either reuse their bags or invest in either canvas type bags or pull along carts (common with older people in New Zealand). Buying bags over here is almost only seen as an emergency thing only.
Nigel (North Shore)
Fantastic opportunity for competitors to stand outside and give-away free advertising bags to potential customers! I'm all for it!
Trish
A great idea. I note in Australia many supermarkets will not provide a plastic bag for 3 or less items. It is time we all became proactive and used recycleable shopping bags anyway, which have the added advantage of not tearing and spilling the contents everywhere. However the profit on the 10 cents should go to environmental causes
Gavin Tanguay
I am a New Zealander living in Norway, where the practice of paying a symbolic amount for plastic shopping bags has been common for many years. shoppers are asked if they want a bag (and how many) and some choose to keep bags and take with them or buy stronger environmentally-friendly cloth bags. I honestly believe there are far less bags flying and lying round here than in New Zealand and that the token price of bags is a factor. Bags her cost about 18c - 23 c in New Zealand money, but given that price and income levsls are higher here, I believe 10c or 15c per bag in New Zealand is appropriate.
Graeme
Although I could hardly call myself a greenie - I do believe that the best answer is reducing our consumption of anything we generally use once and disgard. Recycling is great but it is much better if we reduce consumption in the first place. Good on you Bunnings but it is hardly revolutionary - Pak'n'Save have been doing it for years - perhaps for different reasons (ie to give the perception that costs have been cut to the bone) but for the same result. Paying for anything makes us think about whether we really want it and will mean that the checkout operator will not automatically give you a bag.
Kiwi in OZ
This is a great idea and I hope will be followed by many more stores. Plastic bags are a major source of litter.
Craeghs Marie-Paule
This has been happening in Europe for more then a decade or so. I always joke to my friends that I live here in the 70ties, but it seems the Godzone is catching up fast! Good on you. And really, people, who's going to clean up our trash? It will be our children, who will be very grateful for a few tons less plastic.
Chris
Hasn't the plastic bag become the bad boy of plastic packaging. If you take a look inside all those bags coming out of supermarkets there's a lot more plastic inside than the bag itself. Drink bottles litter the streets and parks more so than plastic bags. At least I can re use my plastic bag for the kids footy boots, collecting the newspapers for recycling or my lunch for work. Charging is just another profit scheme for the retailer, next will be every day low prices on plastic bags, and what will be the "beat it by 15 per cent" on a bag that costs nothing from Mitre 10 - I guess nothing.
Donna Mangham
I would support any business that tries to reduce our unnecessary dependence on plastic bags. I don't remember them being around when I was a kid and I'm sure we did ok without them. They are a terrible waste of resources and an unsightly mess, so considering the bulk of them are only used once is a terrible waste. I shop at Pak N Save where bags are 10c also - I've never bought one - always use the boxes they provide or fabric bags. Great idea Bunnings!
Irene
Depends were you get your groceries,if you get them at a small local shop no. But if you get them from a major chain of supermarkets that are able to charge you less then it's probably OK.
Heather
The supermarket bags are at least handy for lining rubbish bins or putting your grubby clothes in when travelling. I object to those enormous square rigid plastic ones from boutiques and the like. What on earth do you do with them?? The Max stores are a fine example. Why don't they just use paper bags which you can at least put out with the paper recycling?
Peter (Auckland)
Wasn't it the shops / supermarkets that introduced the change from paper bags to plastic in the first place? Apart from the fact that paper bags were more flimsy then plastic I don't recall any huge protests asking for change. Once again the consumer is being asked to pay the price for big businesses poor decisions. Rather then getting the public to ask for less plastic at the checkout how about they train their staff to pack items more economically? I have lost count of the number of times I have been through a checkout and one small item has been carelessly placed into a medium or large bag or several items have been put into two bags when one would have been sufficient. Sounds more like profiteering to me then any real concern for the environment. After all, if they were concerned about the environment wouldn't they be seriously looking for an environmentally friendly alternative?
Harry
Ccharging for plastic bags is a disgrace. Them money hungry companies were the first people to get rid of environmental friendly packaging. Now after polluting the world for years, it is going to cost them heaps to clean up their act, but guess who will pay?
Jacky
It amazes me that with all of the technology available at our fingertips today, that someone still hasn't come up with bio-degradable plastic that doesn't emit dioxins that can be used in making these zillions of plastic bags used at the checkout. The irony with the current shopping bags is that they mostly get 'recycled' as rubbish bags for the average householder and ends up at the dump. Good luck to Bunnings with their extra charge although I think the best way to encourage good habits is to reward good behaviour - how about a 10 cent discount if you use your own bag?
John Windle
I am not unhappy about the charge for plastic bags as this has been done in the UK by some supermarkets for quite some time. Sainsburys, however, gave 1p for every bag which was reused and most people dropped this into a box which was used for local charities. How about that here?
Chris White
While I support the reduction of plastic bags in the environment I resent the idea of having to pay for them at the supermarket hence giving the supermarket more profit. Some items are not practical to be put in the recyle bags you can buy for about $2 at the supermarket. If you are struggling with groceries and catching public transport it is also more difficult than if you have your own vehicle to transport items.
Offshore Greenie
Rather than charge the public for plastic bags, I'm sure some sort of "greennie" cash discount or loyalty scheme bonus points (eg Flybuys) could be a more motivating way for the public take "ownership of this massive problem" and support reducing packaging waste.
Chris B
I dont see why not. Apart from the environmental benefits shops have every right to recoup their losses from buying plastic bags.
AJC
Good on them -- 10 cents isn't enough! I wholeheartedly support a bag tax for New Zealand, similar to Ireland's (news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2205419.stm). Ireland taxes 15 cents (Euro) per bag, and initially this led to a 90 per cent decrease in plastic bag usage. Use is creeping up again now, so there are calls to increase the tax (www.indymedia.ie/article/74674). There is a campaign already underway in New Zealand (www.bagtax.org.nz/).
Nettie
Suits me fine not to have any more store plastic bags, after all we've been acting as unpaid advertisers for them for years. Bet they haven't thought that one through.
Feather (Melbourne)
Three cheers for Bunnings for taking the lead on charging for plastic bags in NZ. It has been a long time coming. From my experience living overseas, NZ may paint itself as a clean, green image, but it is a long way behind other countries in terms of recycling and reducing the use of plastic bags. Ireland was the first country to wage a war on plastic bags several years ago by charging consumers a 'plas-tax' at the till for every plastic bag they used. Hitting consumers where it hurts - the wallet - is a sure fire way of changing consumer behaviour. However - there must be a omprehensive communications plan to educate all New Zealanders about the need to reduce single-use plastic bags, and adopting alternatives. That said, the ubiquitous green supermarket bags seen here in Australia are not necessarily the answer - they are made off shore, from a non-biodegradable product. To be truly environmentally friendly, a bag should be made locally from a natural product (ie jut e, flax), and use vegetable dies for printing logos, etc. I wrote a paper on the plastic bag issue as part of my post-grad studies a few years ago, and it is still a topic I am passionate about.
F (Auckland)
Just about time they did. Bunnings should follow the Pak and Save model where the boxes that the merchandise originally came in get reused by customers to take merchandise home.
Sonia
I think it is a brilliant idea, all retailers should either charge for them, or not provide them at all. At least if people have to buy their plastic bags they might start being a little more responsible with what they do with them. It costs between $1-$2 for a canvas eco bag from the supermarket. Not only are they stronger than plastic bags, they also hold more, can be washed and can be used over and over. It really is a very small sacrifice to make to achieve a great result of less plastic rubbish in our landfills and polluting our environment. As a side note, I would also like to see less packaging from the takeaway chains, for example, providing food on a plate for those that eat in rather than serving it on and in paper and plastic which is just totally improvident.
Delighted (Carterton)
Fantastic, ban the bags. Hopefully the supermarkets will follow. It is very easy to get into the habit of taking your own bags to the supermarket, and actually you never have a split bag again.
A. Hooper
A good start, but why has it taken so long? It has been illegal for stores to give away free plastic bags in Ireland for several years already. Human nature being what it is, if the bags are on offer for free, we'll take them. Most of these bags are made from petroleum and are destined for the landfills, or worse are blown out to sea where they choke whales and other large sea dwellers. According to the World Wildlife Fund, "more than 100,000 whales, seals, turtles, and birds die every year as a result of plastic bags." The Australian government reports that "on 24 August 2000, a Bryde's whale died in Trinity Bay, 2 km from central Cairns. An autopsy found that the whale's stomach was tightly packed with plastic, including supermarket bags, food packages, bait bags, three large sheets of plastic, and fragments of garbage bags. There was no food in its stomach."
Rose
I think it up to the customers to make the right choice. Here in Australia it has become the latest fashion to have environmentally friendly cotton bags, though they do not charge for plastic. Charities have started producing them with part of the purchase price going to the organization. There are also recycling bins at the supermarkets to put your plastic bags. I would support a government subsidy on non-plastic reusable bags rather than a price rise on plastic.
Matthew Darby
Plastic Bags need not be the scourge of New Zealand as they can now be recycled, using technology developed right here in New Zealand. The Christchurch City Council collects shopping bags through its kerbside collections and are then on sold to us for reprocessing into freight pallets. We have the ability to reprocess every bag used in New Zealand if we could get the Councils around New Zealand to collect them at the kerbside. In fact we have the ability to reprocess every piece of household waste plastic.My suggestion is that companies like Bunnings focus on collection strategies as there is no viable alternative. Paper bags require ten time the energy to produce than plastic bags. We provide a ready alternative to waste reduction and we help reduce the country's carbon footprint because we do not use timber which obviously places more pressure on deforestation.
Kieran
It depends where the money goes. The company should not be pocketing the money, instead it should be put used to fund some recycling or waste disposal/management scheme.