Plastic bag ban...... meaningful initiative or just a feel good stunt?

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

Deleted member

Guest
Mrs GPH just read part of an online post on another social media platform to me, where the question was asked, “Why are Coles banning single use plastic bags ? And then giving away plastic toys which will end up in land fill and the oceans” .
I did think that banning these supposedly bio degradable bags and yet continue to wrap all manner of food (unnecessarily) in plastic cling film and bags, all set on (single use) polystyrene trays, was somewhat pointless and probably counter productive.
But what is the alternative ?
Being somewhat older than a lot of the population today, I have memories of what shopping for food and meat was all about before the proliferation of supermarkets
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure supermarkets have made life so much better for many people .....
So as a young lad growing up in suburban Auckland in the 1960’s I still remember the regular visit into our street of the fruit and veg truck, and even a fisho and butcher truck, milk was delivered fresh daily as was bread and the news paper . My mum would take her basket into the street and buy with cash (no Credit card and fly buys back then) her needs for that day or the next few days .
If you were. A working family I.e. mum and dad both working, there was a corner store (Dairy in NZ parlance) a green grocer, butcher and baker usually within walking distance (or at least what we called walking distance in the 50’s and 60’s) for those last minute staples, 1/2 lb of sausages, a bag of spuds (unwashed and odd shaped) or an extra pint of milk for that last minute rice pudding. I would wander down to said purveyors of fine foods, armed with a string bag made by natives in the Solomon Islands where my parents lived as missionaries for the first few years of my life on the planet. The potatoes were bagged in brown paper, the sausages in butchers paper and all placed into my string bag.
Even fish and chips were wrapped in a layer of grease proof or butchers paper but with an outer layer of news print to finish the job.
We recycled before we even knew what it meant, plastic wasn’t missed because it wasn’t needed, milk came in glass bottles and you placed the empties in your milk box / letter box for collection each morning 9bedore sunrise). Bread for school lunches was wrapped in a waxed paper, delivered fresh Every morning . Life was simple and in the opinion of this writer, somewhat better than now.
I am like most people, guilty of the most horrendous of plastic use crimes, I have had to make a conscious effort to NOT use plastic, and it’s bloody hard.
I buy lemons and just carry them loose to the checkout, but beans are a bit more difficult,
When the supermarket made its first appearance in NZ , they used double layered paper bags to put grocery items in. I’m not sure when that all went south, but it seems to me to be (maybe) the lesser of the two evils.
I am finding that when I “think” I need something for the house, I am now visiting my local second hand /antique store, I have managed to (buy) recycle some great stuff in recent times, and all of reasonably high quality for a much lower price.
Forgive the ramblings of an old fart living in the past, but I suspect enough is enough, and we all need to do our bit, even if it seem futile.
 
And it has to start somewhere. If we only consider the big problem nothing would ever get done.

We are getting a bit precious needing three crackers and three slices of cheese packaged 'for our convenience'. But maybe that's one of the next things on the list.

But when you do it by big companies price gouging their customers, whilst at the same time INCREASING their own plastic use, you lose the will of the people. The same reason we’ve lost motivation for a price on carbon, because the ALP used it as another form of welfare.
 
The study used to get that number is flawed. It doesn't account for increased sales in (plastic) garbage bags, nor the increased size of the newer shopping bags, nor the fact that you need to use the new bags at least 40 times to cover the resource costs of the banned bags and people simply aren't doing so.

Even if it's 10% can't see it's a bad thing? As long as there's been no net increase.
 
Sponsored Post

Struggling to use your Frequent Flyer Points?

Frequent Flyer Concierge takes the hard work out of finding award availability and redeeming your frequent flyer or credit card points for flights.

Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, the Frequent Flyer Concierge team at Frequent Flyer Concierge will help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

But when you do it by big companies price gouging their customers, whilst at the same time INCREASING their own plastic use, you lose the will of the people. The same reason we’ve lost motivation for a price on carbon, because the ALP used it as another form of welfare.

How is it price gouging? We have reusable bags which get taken to the supermarket every time they're needed. Cost us 10p from Tesco, and they get replaced free of charge once a year. (In fact everyone in Australia who wanted a reusable bag got them for free for a few weeks.)

We don't buy packaged items than can be sourced without unnecessary packaging.
 
Even if it's 10% can't see it's a bad thing? As long as there's been no net increase.
o_O
The "reusable" plastic bags are thicker and larger then the (not)"single use" bags. They use more plastic. They are heavier. They have a higher manufacturing, shipping and resource cost to use. On a net resource cost basis, their mere existence is worse for the environment then the banned bags.
They have to be used 40+ times each before those costs match the costs of the banned bags.
Most of the "reusable" bags are not being used 40+ times. Most are getting 3-4 uses at best.

The fabric bags are worse, needing to be used hundreds of times to balance the resource costs. With the shopping patterns of most people, this means they need to be used for years, at least 3. Yet they are lucky to be used for a few months, much less an entire year, before getting thrown out.

This bag ban is worse. There is an increase. It is ignored so people can get their good feels.
 
o_O
The "reusable" plastic bags are thicker and larger then the (not)"single use" bags. They use more plastic. They are heavier. They have a higher manufacturing, shipping and resource cost to use. On a net resource cost basis, their mere existence is worse for the environment then the banned bags.
They have to be used 40+ times each before those costs match the costs of the banned bags.
Most of the "reusable" bags are not being used 40+ times. Most are getting 3-4 uses at best.

The fabric bags are worse, needing to be used hundreds of times to balance the resource costs. With the shopping patterns of most people, this means they need to be used for years, at least 3. Yet they are lucky to be used for a few months, much less an entire year, before getting thrown out.

This bag ban is worse. There is an increase. It is ignored so people can get their good feels.

We replace our ‘bags for life’ once a year. So i guess we get the value.

I’m open to see the data on the bag ban.
 
Made no difference to this household - same amount of bags used for daily rubbish.... only we now need to buy some rather getting them for free. The ones we get for free are bags from F&V, butcher, and fresh fish retailers.
 
Last edited:
We've been remembering to take our cloth bags to the store and composting/recycling more.

Added more recycling in the office as well (cans & bottles) and $ goes to a charity.
 
The fabric bags are worse, needing to be used hundreds of times to balance the resource costs. With the shopping patterns of most people, this means they need to be used for years, at least 3. Yet they are lucky to be used for a few months, much less an entire year, before getting thrown out.
Why are they getting thrown out? The bags living in the back of our car, for the weekly shopping, are pretty old; a couple over 10yrs (I know ‘cos one of them had a wedding present in it & our wedding was >9yrs ago :)).

Maybe the bag-ban thing should impose a higher cost on the reusable bags, if they’re being ditched too often.
 
The Frequent Flyer Concierge team takes the hard work out of finding reward seat availability. Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, they'll help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

AFF Supporters can remove this and all advertisements

We've been doing the "no grey plastic bags" for quite a few years in Tasmania so it is amusing to hear the angst over the replacement bags issue. The discussion which is important is whether it is better for our environment. I have to say I am not seeing the amount of plastic bags blowing round the countryside that use to happen (which has to be a positive). I am also harbouring a seething colony of the replacement bags because a certain husband will often "forget" to bring them to the supermarket and so purchases more (although even the old dog is learning the new process - albeit slowly). At the check out, it seems to be more of a male thing to purchase new bags (sorry guys - but that's the way I see it after spending hours of my life at the supermarket). Cloth and string bags are biodegradable and a lot of people have switched to using them. One problem is so much food that used to be sold loose, now has plastic wrapping - we should do a boycott and start unwrapping the plastic and leaving it at the supermarket. - "a silent protest at the point of sale".
 
I’ve had some of these reusable (15c) bags not even survive their first use. I think you’d be lucky to get 40 uses out of them.
 
o_O
The "reusable" plastic bags are thicker and larger then the (not)"single use" bags. They use more plastic. They are heavier. They have a higher manufacturing, shipping and resource cost to use. On a net resource cost basis, their mere existence is worse for the environment then the banned bags.
They have to be used 40+ times each before those costs match the costs of the banned bags.
Most of the "reusable" bags are not being used 40+ times. Most are getting 3-4 uses at best.

The fabric bags are worse, needing to be used hundreds of times to balance the resource costs. With the shopping patterns of most people, this means they need to be used for years, at least 3. Yet they are lucky to be used for a few months, much less an entire year, before getting thrown out.

This bag ban is worse. There is an increase. It is ignored so people can get their good feels.
I don’t think the point was ever cost but how to reduce the non degradable plastic ending up in the oceans and land fill.
 
I've witnessed young kids touching fresh produce with their hands after rubbing their runny noses. I think in that case, I'm definitely for having plastic packaging.
 
Can't be bothered reading the entire thread as it has grown too long. But want I want to say is that the percentage of my household waste from the old shopping bags was always minuscule compared to the other rubbish - especially packaging of individual products. Am I missing anything real in this debate?
 
Can't be bothered reading the entire thread as it has grown too long. But want I want to say is that the percentage of my household waste from the old shopping bags was always minuscule compared to the other rubbish - especially packaging of individual products. Am I missing anything real in this debate?

Couldn’t be bothered reading your post - could you summarise please?
 
I wonder about these multi-use plastic bags. Why plastic at all, or if absolutely necessary, why not bio-degradable?

In some respects, us "advanced" societies could take a leaf out of some third world countries where the plastic cancer was identified years ago, and where locally made reusable bags (bilums in PNG for example) aren't used, the only alternative is free lightweight biodegradable plastic style bags, which break down. Seems logical to me.
 
I've witnessed young kids touching fresh produce with their hands after rubbing their runny noses. I think in that case, I'm definitely for having plastic packaging.
If you carry a machete to fix those children so they don’t & can’t do it again, everyone’s a winner - even the environment, as we don’t need plastic!
 
kyle said:
I've witnessed young kids touching fresh produce with their hands after rubbing their runny noses. I think in that case, I'm definitely for having plastic packaging.

So does that mean if I get my snotty employee to snot all over your fruit and vegetables and then carefully wrap it up , you'll feel safe and happy??? Safe Food handling rule No 1 is "always (repeat several times till you can remember this) wash your fruit and veg thoroughly whether or not it has been in plastic wrapping and Never assume just because it appears clean that it has not been contaminated. Hands up those who can spot a listeria bacteria using plain eyesight?
 
i have said this before, I don't understand why single use bags aren't made of biodegradable plastic. Happens a lot in Europe already. We used to use the shopping bags for our rubbish, now we buy garbage bags, which we make sure sure are are biodegradable, so maybe that isn't such a bad thing after all.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top