Tick, tick, tick: The bag's up baby

'These bags can take thousands of years to fully break down.'

Picture: Contributed

DAYS are numbered for single-use plastic shopping bags in Queensland- but it will be a two-year long goodbye.

Any environmentalist will tell you the problem of the ongoing single use shopping bags is catastrophic, and they have the figures to back them up.

Environment Minister Steven Miles said up to 900 million single-use, lightweight plastic shopping bags are used each year and up to 16 million bags are thrown away, ending up in waterways, beaches and parks.

"Shopping bag litter is an eyesore, and these bags can take thousands of years to fully break down,” he said.

"One of our election commitments was to investigate initiatives to address the litter problem and specifically, this conspicuous plastic pollution,” Mr Miles said.

Legislation will be introduced next year around single-use light weight plastic shopping bags, but the ban will not start until mid 2018.

In the meantime retailers will be working to prepare shoppers for the transition.

The National Retail Association will run workshops for retailers state-wide to prepare for the ban and how to help shoppers understand it, including ways to promote alternatives to plastic bags.

While Mr Miles said shoppers may take time to adjust to the ban he said many want them gone; with a recent discussion paper on plastic bags receiving more than 26,000 submissions, of which 96 per cent supported the ban.

The proposed laws are similar to those in South Australia, the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania, and it also has bipartisan support in the Parliament.

"While the current proposal is to ban only the light-weight plastic shopping bags, we also intend to work with the department store retail sector on voluntary arrangements to reduce the use of these thicker, heavier single-use plastic bags.”

The plastic bag ban will coincide with the introduction of the Government's Container Refund Scheme to reduce the impact of drink container litter on Queensland's environment.