We have been saving the local newspapers to wrap waste, as of yore; not as good as the plastic shopping bags but useful none the less.

SA banned plastic bags years ago (we are always first to do the bad and stupid things),but you can still use as many free plastic bags as you like for fruit and veg, so we still get scrap bags.

"if the customer wants"...

Do they? Did they ask?

Coles too is now banning "single-use" plastic shopping bags.
I certainly didn't want or ask for that.
Quite the opposite.
Like Hasbeen, I reuse these as garbage bags, which I will now have to buy (from Coles, who will continue to sell dozens of types of plastic bags).

There's no such thing as "single-use" bags.
https://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2015/08/60-ways-to-reuse-plastic-bags.html

These supermarkets presume everyone knows *when* they will shop (so can bring their own bags) and know how *much* they will buy (so they bring enough bags).
The multi-use bags are heavier and less flexible, but we are expected to carry several around at all times, *just in case* we need to pop in to Coles/Woolies.

Of course they will still make home deliveries in the exact same banned bags.

And sell plastic bags.
And sell hundreds of products wrapped in plastic, many coming from China, the world's leading polluter.

Let's not stop or reduce immigration to reduce pollution. That's racist.
Let's not tax Asian countries that pollute. That's racist.
Let's inconvenience everyone else.
To negligible effect on the environment.

Dear Eric Claus,

Please go and do some homework before submitting a piece like this again. To say that banning plastic straws will have little impact because they are such a small percentage of the plastics produced is like saying bullets are relatively harmless because lead products like batteries or sinkers etc are abundant.

Plastic straws produced today will remain intact for well over a hundred years. They enter our waterways because they float, are easily carried into drains, to our rivers, and often into our oceans where their impact on wildlife is well known.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2J2qdOrW44

There is a similar issue with supposedly single use plastic shopping bags. There are a number of studies showing that many of these bags are reused inside the households as bin liners etc. and once they are banned there is an increase in other types of plastic bags to fulfil the role they once had. But it isn't the quantity of plastic which is the issue but rather the fact that current single use bags are lightweight, make up a sizable chunk of randomly disposed plasitcs and are highly susceptible to being blown many miles to impact wildlife.

Perhaps next time you might avail yourself of a few more facts.

Buy your own plastic shopping bags on EBay. 600 for less than $10.

Way to go!

Steele Redux.

You've been sucked in.

Even if anicdotal, reading these posts will tell you the average story. Plastic shopping bags invariably end their life safely in land fill.

I've been diving in the ocean for a period spanning fifty years, and still engaged commercially in the diving industry. Never once have I ever seen a plastic shopping bag in the ocean. It doesn't happen.

What does happen on the other hand, is the retail grocers assn. are a powerful lobby group who have put the wind up idiots like yourself, and led you down the garden path to support increased profits, and easier competition for Coles and Woolworths, against smarter operators such as Aldi.

This one goes into the gay marriage basket of fantasies....