You don’t have to mention every supermarket individually. They are doing it nationally.
For Woolies it starts tomorrow.
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Been interesting to see how different stores are phasing these out. Mossman in Queensland were plastic bag free when I was up there last week, but Smithfields in Cairns was advertising June 20 as their changeover date - almost as if there’s no particular rhyme or reason.
I went to Woolworths at The Glen last Friday and they had already got rid of plastic bags at each self-serve checkout. Instead, a staff member carrying a dozen plastic bags would go to each shopper and ask “would you like a bag?” I think this interim measure will finish by the close of business tonight.
15c is really nothing in the whole scheme of things (I wouldn’t even pick that amount of money up off the ground if I saw it), and I can usually fit the contents of 4 regular plastic bags in one heavy-weight bag, so I’m not terribly fussed by this change.
I don’t think the supermarkets would be making much of a profit off a bag if they’re selling them for 15 cents.
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probably like postage stamps and 5 cent coins, they cost more to produce than what they are actually worth
I am all in favour of no more single use plastic bags although I do fear we might become overrun with piles and piles of re-useable bags which will probably cause as much environmental damage if people just throw them away because they’ve got too many.
I did buy one of the 15c re-useable bags at Woolworths the other day. I asked the checkout attendant if the bag itself is recyclable. She looked puzzled and eventually settled on “no”. While less plastic bags being consumed is definitely good I’m not sure that this really closes the gap on the whole war on plastic? (Or are they actually recyclable?)
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Isn’t it something like a $175million dollar loss becomes a $75million dollar profit?
Sure I heard something along those lines.
They’re made from 80% recycled plastic.
I’m not certain they can go out in your recycling bin but they can either be reused or taken back into the store and be recycled (with other plastic such as bread bags) through RedCycle.
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thanks. I’ll let the staff member know because she had no idea 
Was just having a look, this: http://thinkrecycle.com.au/a-to-z-guide/ looks like a good site to help anyone out with what’s what. Dead light globes are the one that gets me, I end up putting them in the bin despite being certain that’s not where they belong.
thanks for the link.
The old halogen globes I think go in the landfill but the compact fluro ones I just collect in a box and after a while I take them to the council recycle depot because I don’t think they’ll go in the household recycling bin (they’ve got mercury in them apparently?)
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Most products in supermarkets are packaged in plastic in some way, including a lot packaged in cardboard also have plastic, and it’s all single use. The plastic bag ban is a token gesture I think.
I am amazed that it has taken most of the other states all this time to ban plastic bags, here in SA it’s been banned since May 2009, almost 10 years, sure it takes a little while to get used to & some supermarket staff get unfairly abused by some customers, once you get use to it it’s fine & you don’t think about plastic bags anymore.
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They have to start somewhere
When you combine it with a move to selling reusable bags there is definately a potential to improve revenue - in the context of a supermarket we potentially aren’t talking big dollars, but it would be significant
Woolies predict they will remove 3.2 billion bags - if they were costing the company a cent to provide to the customer thats a significant cost across the whole company
I think it’s naive to assume that the supermarkets aren’t able to profit from this - they are going from something that is a cost to something that they earn direct revenue from (even if that diminishes over time)
You have to start somewhere and this move to reducing plastic consumption is gaining momentum - removing plastic bags is relatively easy to achieve in comparison to changing packaging, but that time will come soon enough
It’s not just Woolworths which is free of single use plastic bags as of today, some IGA supermarkets have also got rid of those non-degradable bags.
I could believe the supermarkets are doing this for environmentally conscious reasons better if they didn’t do things like wrap single pieces of fruit in plastic wrapped aroind a styrofoam tray.
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They say removing those is their next priority.
[sarcasm]Why remove the plastic and the styrofoam. I want my bananas to be disease free thank you very much.[/sarcasm]
I’m sure the doses of chemicals leaching from the plastic and styrofoam are good for your health. 
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They should never have done in the first place. How ridiculous to have bananas wrapped in plastic
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