Woolworths and Big W are ditching their reusable plastic shopping bags so it’s time to whip out your best alternatives — whether’s it’s a classic green fabric number, a chic handbag, or a Hermione Granger-esque never-ending knapsack.
Woolies reckons that phasing out the bags — which are made out of recycled plastic — will remove a whopping 9000 tonnes of plastic from circulation each year, per 9News. I’m sure the turtles will be most grateful.
The current placcy bags in Woolies were brought in after the company got rid of single use plastic back in 2018.
If the thought of no plastic bags ills you with fear, don’t worry ‘cos the change won’t happen immediately. The goal is for all the bags to be gone by next June and Woolies will still have its recycled paper bags available. That gives you well enough time to invest in some nice reusable shopping bags.
“Ultimately, we want to sell less bags altogether,” managing director Natalie Davis said per the ABC.
Essentially, the shops will be running down their stock of bags until there are none left.
The wee plastic produce bags — the ones which greatly confuse international travellers — will be sticking around. But according to the ABC, Woolies is also looking to “explore more sustainable options” for those too.
If you’re in South Australia and the Northern Territory the bag ban is coming for you soon. They’ve already been phased out in Western Australia. WA may be behind in the time difference but by golly, they’ve beaten us on the placcy bags.
New South Wales only introduced its ban on single-use plastics in November 2021. In SA (yep, those icons) single-use plastic bags have been banned since 2009.
But it looks like people are already trying to cut down their plastic bag use. According to Woolworths, eight out of ten customers bring their own bags to go shopping with.
And if you’re really desperate for bags, I’d recommend a visit to literally any sharehouse ever. Because if it’s like mine, there’s 100% an alpha shopping bag stuffed ominously with piles of its reusable shopping bag brethren.
