Have been thinking about this for some time Individual by posting in an unrelated thread has reminded me, first is it truly being recycled? current NSW bottle return seems not to be, we pay 15 cents ten is returned 5 is a tax, but only in very few places can you return the 2 liter bottle? so pay more get nothing back?from this week it will cost me 15 cents for single use bags at my major shop brand, but for health and cleanness concerns I will never reuse them,why not the brown paper bags of my youth?

Dear Belly,

I'm not sure why they got rid of the brown paper bags.
Did they break? There must be a better solution to
what's currently on offer. Home delivery perhaps
if you buy enough?

cont'd ...

Dear Belly,

It's just occurred to me that Supermarkets have stopped
issuing plastic carry-bags on the assumption that it's
going to save the environment. Most people use those
carry-bags as bin-liners which are then removed with the
trash. Now people have to buy the bin-liners and the same
amount of plastic will still go into the trash. But the
Supermarkets will be selling the bin-liners and making money.

So this doesn't really solve what it's meant to. Paper bags
would be a better solution for the environment.

Foxy those paper bags used here and in America often needed two one inside the other to be safe with wet items, a recent ABC documentary highlighted NSW recycled? rubbish being transported over night, in B double trucks, and buried in land fill out side Ipswich in QLD, to avoid a NSW tax,China no longer wants our plastic, is it, at the end of the chain, being recycled or buried? a government part funded recycle plant here put many tonns of crushed glass, in road base, [cheaper than the gravel] and only after a child ate some did it stop,next they say we must take a container for salads and such? will that be healthy if we have an out break of say hepatitis?

Dear Belly,

Paper bags in land-fill decompose quite well (after all
they're made from timber). Some plastic bags decompose
as well. However they're not as strong as the Supermarket
bags. And if containers of any form are gotten rid of,
the take-away food industry will shut-down. It is time
that re-cycling is undertaken within Australia and not
shipped to China. That would create extra jobs.

Firstly, paper bags require trees. They are also very expensive and given the uproar from customers about the 15 cent bag, I doubt they would pay 50 cents for a paper bag.

Interestingly, there is also a ban on plastic straws, however research suggests that the majority of plastic straws found on Oz beaches are from Asia. Go figure.

For me it's actually a win, because unlike the 3 cent bag I was giving away, I will now be selling the 15 cent bag I pay 7 cents for.

If I pay 7 cents for a reusable bag, you can be the majors would pay half of that if not less. Even if they pay 5 cents, they will be making 10 cents per bag profit, and that's about a 200% mark up. It is especially interesting when you consider what goes into the bag has a mark up of less than 10% on average. Food for thought! Sorry for the pun.

of cause the solution is to BYO bag, but hey, that places the responsibility onto the user and they don't like that do they.