‘We know this is a big change for our customers’: Woolworths to ditch plastic bags early

SORRY, shoppers. Woolies is getting ahead of the game and ditching single-use plastic bags ahead of schedule.

WOOLWORTHS will get in ahead of rival Coles by phasing out single-use plastic bags nationwide 10 days earlier than planned.

Shoppers at Woolworths supermarkets, BWS, Metro and petrol stations will no longer receive plastic bags from June 20. They will either have to bring their own or purchase thicker, reusable bags for 15 cents, or canvas bags for 99 cents.

Coles will stick with its previously announced July 1 end date coinciding with legislation coming into effect in Queensland, Victoria and WA, which will join South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and Northern Territory in banning the bag.

NSW is the only state without legislation or a ban coming into effect, but the major supermarkets will withdraw bags voluntarily.

“Our teams have been working hard behind the scenes to accelerate the rollout of this plan so we can start making a positive impact on the environment as quickly as possible,” Woolworths Group chief executive Brad Banducci said in a statement on Wednesday.

“We know this is a big change for our customers and store teams, and we need to do all we can to make the transition as seamless as possible for both.”

It comes after Woolworths revealed it would be banning single-use plastic bags in 12 stores from Wednesday — Marayong, Greenway Village, Dural and Mullumbimby in NSW, Wyndham Vale, Taylors Lakes and Toorak in Victoria, Mossman and Noosa Civic in Queensland, and Singleton, South Fremantle and Cottesloe in WA.

Coles will also remove bags from some of its stores later this month — Balgowlah in NSW, Williamstown in Victoria, Inglewood in WA and Hope Island in Queensland.

“Single-use plastic bags have become a huge problem for Australia’s oceans and waterways where they cause significant harm to turtles, whales and fish,” Planet Ark CEO Paul Klymenko said in a statement. “They also don’t breakdown in landfill and require significant resources to manufacture in the first place.”

“Experiences in countries like the UK and Ireland have shown the introduction of small charges on plastic bags can end up reducing plastic bag usage by up to 85 per cent as shoppers embrace reusable alternatives, and we have every confidence this can happen in Australia too.”

Woolworths, which says it distributes more than 3.2 billion plastic bags every year, has previously been criticised for its excessive use of plastic packaging on fresh produce like bananas and sweet potatoes.

A spokesman for the supermarket told the Herald Sun it was trialling the removal or reduction of plastic packaging for fruit and vegetables, and had already removed packaging on products including spring onion, celery, kale and spinach.

In 2012, a review of South Australia’s bag ban found just 15 per cent of consumers purchased bin liners before the ban, compared with 80 per cent after, “increasing some scepticism about the broader environmental benefit”.

In 2011, a report by the UK Environment Agency found single-use plastic bags actually had the lowest overall environmental impact in eight out of nine categories compared with heavier options, when the entire production and transport life cycle was taken into account.

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