Customers at Leura Woolworths were finding novel ways to make up for forgetting their green bags on Wednesday June 20, when single use plastic bags were officially banned in store.
While some purchased the thicker recycled bags for 15 cents or a replaceable cloth bag for 99 cents, others carried their groceries direct from their trolleys and baskets to their cars, others used their backpacks, and some had the clever idea of popping into the next door bottleshop for an empty wine box.
But no-one seemed to mind that the nation’s biggest supermarket chain had removed single use bags. Competitors Coles and IGA will instigate a similar ban from July 1.
Woolworths dispenses about 3.2 billion single-use plastic bags every year and said the change is supported by almost 75 per cent of shoppers.
Neale Pearce, Springwood IGA store manager, said “most customers support the concept of reducing the use of plastic bags and we have certainly seen an uplift in the purchase of our re-usable jute bags over the last few weeks”.
IGA Springwood has 15c reusable plastic bags available for purchase, similar to Coles, Woolies and Aldi and also has cardboard boxes available from the rack at the front of the store.
“As the change will be across all supermarket chains I believe the transition will be quite seamless, we all will just have to get in the habit of bringing our shopping bags with us when we go shopping,” Mr Pearce said.
Woolworths Katoomba and Woolworths Leura group manager, Brett Murray said; “From the beginning, we felt strongly that this was the right thing to do and we’re really pleased to see customers are behind the change as well”.
Mr Murray said it was about preventing plastic bags from reaching waterways and reducing the overall production of plastics.
“This is a landmark day for our community, to help support a greener future for Australia. We are proud to say that from now on, single-use plastic bags are gone from our store for good.
The Woolies “Bag for Good” costs 99 cents and when it gets damaged, the store will replace it for free. Any money made from the bag will go to junior landcare groups.
Vanessa James of Leura, and her daughter Madison, had forgotten their bags on the day Woolies banned the single use bags, but were happy to buy a new reusable 15 cent bag.
"I think it's a revolution, it's helping the environment," Madison said.
Green groups have welcomed the bans being introduced by Coles and Woolworths. Similar bans in the United Kingdom have helped reduce plastic bag usage by up to 95 per cent.
Mr Murray suggested local customers put reusable bags at the top of the shopping list, keep a couple in the car or leave a post-it note on the fridge as a reminder.