The great plastic bag debate

[admin]

Have to laugh at this.

Coles' reusable bags come with a warning: "Disinfect and wipe after use."

But Woolworths warns shoppers: "Do not wash" its own green bag

[mello yello]

stupid greens and their half arsed brainfarts disguised as policies - what a total waste of time

this bloke has it perfectly summed up - "The plastic bag ban is environmental symbolism at it’s very worst,”




a ban on all bans
legend!!

[mello yello]

Have to laugh at this.

Coles' reusable bags come with a warning: "Disinfect and wipe after use."

But Woolworths warns shoppers: "Do not wash" its own green bag

the sort of idiotic contradictions that fuelled the Whingepool bag thread to go for 308 pages for a while back there - till the greenies had it shut down - typically

if you dont agree with their brainfarts, or tell them their logic is flawed, out comes the harassment, namecalling and censorship and general crybaby tactics - instead of actually formulating a proper working solution, its just one token useless feelgood gesture after another, meanwhile back at the supermarket ... nobody has a clue whats going on

[cobra679]

Bring back the BAG!

[exited]

The Angry Ant was a crackup in this

[technoweenie]

Can I throw plastic straws in here too?

U.S. States are getting stupid and banning plastic straws...

The replacements? lids that use MORE plastic than the old straw/lid combined, or cardboard straws.... individually wrapped in... you guessed it.. plastic....

Also....

Some major cities are now running into some serious issues...

What has scared the left so much that they had to pass laws to protect against it?

(A) Opioid abuse, drug needles littering the street
(B) Homelessness and homeless camps/tent cities
(C) Human waste, fecal matter and urine, covering public streets
(D) Plastic straws



If you answered D, you're correct! Saving the public from plastic straws is more important than drug abuse, homelessness, or feces running in the streets!

Think about that.

THIS is how in touch people are with reality, in major cities...

[george65]

Typically, once again where you see some green " save the planet " agenda there is a cost to the people and a profit for big biz/ Gubbermints and of course blind freddy can see there will be no benefit and it's a crock of ship. Always the same.

Another typical greenwashed sook is to not buy over packaged good. WTF? Do these people live in unfurnished caves? You can't buy a pencil now unless it's in a Blister pack that doubles as a puzzle of how to remove product from package without destroying it in the process. Trying buying a new printer or a Tv or a flatpack coffee table or even have a look at the pile of rubbish you have after cooking dinner. I bought a set of rachet straps from Costco the other week. about half a kilo of cardboard with bliste pack plastic about 1mm thick weighing another half kilo. you have to be careful not to cut your fingers to the bone on this shit. Took a box cutter, tin snips and a pair of pliers to extrapolate the ratchets and straps from the package which then took a disproportionate amount of bin because it resisted all attempts to compact it in any way.

There is that much Rubbish from anything you buy, having a cry about the bags you bring the groceries in is a joke.

I'm not a fan of the empty Boxes. They take up a lot of room even when torn up and take considerable effort to break up so you don't fill the bin. I have also lost the things when I didn't tear them up straight away and they blew out the yard never to be seen again.

Going back to earlier in the thread about the landfill for recycling is spot on. Brother in law worked for a major garbage company in Sydney. They had the contract where we lived. Wife went mad on me for putting the wrong thing in the recycle bin. BIL laughed and said it' all goes to landfill, nothing in this council area is recycled.
Council had just put out tenders for rubbish collection and specified cost for recycled rubbish and without. Given how much the landfill for everything price was, they took it. Company at council directive had Separate trucks for waste and recycling but as BIL said, look closely, they are magnetic signs. They often pick up the red bins, Dump them then change the signs and come back and pick up the yellow in the same truck and take it to the same place.

I was putting all the rubbish in the yellow bins after that and got a couple of warning letters from the council. BIL said the trucks have camera's in them. One day council sends me a fine for putting wrong stuff in bin. I laugh and ring up the waste department and speak to the head monkey. I tell him about the letter and confirm he is in charge and his name. I tell him I'll be calling him as a witness when I take the matter to court to tell me where the recycling centre is and details about how much waste it recycles, how many people work there and what is done with the recycling.

I say I need to confirm it's not just all going to landfill because if that was the case this fine would be unlawful to issue and I could probably sue council for stress and anxiety and the greenwashed in the area would probably be pretty upset there was no recycling done by the council at all.
next DAY i get another letter, council has decided to withdraw the fine and let me off with one more warning and hoping I will "Correct" my behavior.
I didn't and never heard squat about it again.

[hinekadon]

I have to comment on the dog shit !!!! greeny rules that say you must pick up you dog droppings and put them in a plastic bag and dispose of it in the bin . HAHAHAHA what a crock ? the bag makes it smell for longer before its picked up from the bin .where if it was left a la naturale it would dry out in two days and become dust fertilizer or the rain would wash it into the ground and the plastic bag problem gone ? i ask you what is better or dont you watch where you are walking and step in it which is your fault not the dogs ???? perhaps there should be a law making every farmer pick up his livestock poos and put it in a plastic bag for collection , after all you might take a wander across his land and step in a turd oh dear how sad never mind

[mello yello]

COLES extend free plastic bag offer indefinitely

apparently people need more time to "adjust"

dont know how long Coles think people need to adjust to bullshit, but if i were them , i wouldnt be holding my breath

[george65]

COLES extend free plastic bag offer indefinitely

Is that in NSW or other states?

The Mrs was in Hospital all last week so I cautiously took my life into my own hands, several times, and with no regard for my own personal safety and well being, took the brave step of going to the supermarket to avoid a potentially catastrophic fammine and stock up before disaster which would have been known as the great meat Pie Shortage of '18 struck our freezer and I staved to death in her absence.

I got some looks both from the checkout Chick and the other customers with their wads of eclectic shopping bags when she asked if I needed bags or had my own which I thought would have been very obvious. I saw the chick ring up the .15C and thought well that will make no difference at all to the total and noticed that the free bag thing was supposed to end today.
Mentioned the bag charge to the Mrs and when she got home Pointed out the charge was reversed and the large note on the docket the offer would expire Aug 1st.
I thought I'll go back sans bags tomorrow ( last week) so I can stock up so there is a supply we can evenly distribute between our 4 cars so we have the things.

I also wondered what we were going to do without the anything but single use bags. We use them for all sorts of things, rubbish, putting in plants and veggies to take to people, general storage of similar goods in the cupboards, keeping things dry or wet things from dry, Putting your dirty clothes in when you go away to keep them from the clean clothes etc.
The thin and flexible nature of those bags made them very hands and the new thicker ones will be far more bulky to store and for a lot of uses.
I used to use the thin ones when changing the oil on the car. Grab the filter with it and unscrew catching all the oil that came out and then the filter itself. All nice and clean and spill free.

If they are going to keep giving the new bags away Indefinitely, someone explain to me the whole point of this typical green washed BS Seen to be doing something but typically making matter worse exercise?

It would not be an if or a butt they intend to not charge for them in the foreseeable future because a basic fundamental with any offer is you put an expiry date on it as a company who's business is retail would know very well.

If they were trying to train consumer behavior, it would be very clear that you get one more week or month and then we charge. Saying indefinitely tells me their number crunching has detected a back lash and they see an opportunity to get an advantage over their competitors by providing bags which they could write off as a fraction of their advertising and promotional budgets anyway.


If they really wanted to do something to help the environment, how about stopping all the product Dumping they do? BIL worked at garbage co and the amount of perfectly good products that were dumped because they were old model or last years stock or whatever was incredible. Nothing to do with safety or anything, just waste.
He had 2 40Ft containers of Mens shorts dumped because they had the wrong bar code swing tag on them. Nothing wrong with the shorts ( every bloke in the family is still wearing their life time supply) just the tags were wrong. IF they had an inkling of concern for what they lie about, planet/ environment, they would have employed some 15 yo kids @ $10 hr or what ever pittance they would probably be happy to get, to sit down and re- tag the things. Nup, dump them in land fill, probably 10's of thousands of pair.

Womens fashion is worse and also even tools and industrial parts and fitting get Dumped. I got 5 brand New Solar grid tie inverters that were dumped as a load.
Supposedly old model. I looked them up and the ONLY thing updated on the new model was the front plastic cover. I kid you not. Actual unit is the same, they just put a different cover on the front of the things.

How much resources and energy goes into making these things and they didn't even recycle them for the metal.

All this green save the planet crap is nothing more than a money making exercise riding on the back of a noble cause to get away with scamming people.

[peteramjet]

Is that in NSW or other states?

SMH article reckons it’s Australia wide, except Tas and SA

[technoweenie]

In a local city here in the states, they banned plastic bags and forced stores to switch to paper bags, and enforce a 5cent per bag tax... Now they're complaining that they're using 10x more paper bags than they did before....

[lsemmens]

COLES extend free plastic bag offer indefinitely

Ha!!! The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[mello yello]

according to Greenputz, we in Australia dump 50 million plastic bags end up in Australia's waterways and oceans every year - so in the last 5 years we have dumped 250 MILLION plastic bags, according to these putzes,


BUT ANYONE IS YET TO PRODUCE A SINGLE SOLITARY PICTURE OF JUST ONE - let alone 50 million of them




i dont know what the greenie leather sandal hippy hairnet bag brigade are complaining about - nobody is stopping them believing whatever fairy tale they want to believe in and re-using their bags until they catch cholera

[exited]

COLES extend free plastic bag offer indefinitely

apparently people need more time to "adjust"

dont know how long Coles think people need to adjust to bullshit, but if i were them , i wouldnt be holding my breath

So now it's back to square one - same pollution with more plastic.

They should be more innovative... reuse a plastic bag for some frequent flyer points or something.

Or better still...




Now that's reusable - and thicker! And collectable! And free!

[ol' boy]

Amazing how ALDI haven't suffered this problem
And continue to grow in sales..

Ah Coles, you're like a Politician
Promise one thing, then reverse your stance

[mello yello]

but wait --- theres more!!

Coles have now backflipped on the backflip that was a backflip to the original backflip of a month ago - makes you wonder, do the LNP manage Coles?

apparently Greenputz complained that Coles caved in to a small and vocal minority so in turn Coles caved in to a small and vocal minority, like Greenputz

this is their statement -

“Coles have caved in far too quickly to a small but vocal minority and there is absolutely no doubt Coles will be punished for this decision by customers who don’t want to see plastic bags littering their beaches and killing marine life," Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigner Zoe Deans said"





again, i repeat, where is the evidence that Australia has 50 million stray plastic bags floating around our oceans and rivers - shirley its not that hard

i call BS on this, total BS

[mello yello]

the part that really got me was the

Coles have caved in far too quickly to a small but vocal minority

as Johhnny McEnroe would say - "You cannot be serious!!!!"

[gordon_s1942]

People seem to forget that years ago we didnt have plastic cups or straws but ones made of a waxed paper.
Except for the problem that waxed paper isnt heat tolerant, I cant see why we cant go back to the waxed paper versions which might help use up some of the multiple TONNES of scrap paper lying around waiting to be recycled because nobody wants it.
Those whinging remind me of those who bitch at Aldi for their coin in the slot trolley deposit but are quite happy to leave the one their using anywhere they like and then complain when the trolleys arent removed.

[george65]

again, i repeat, where is the evidence that Australia has 50 million stray plastic bags floating around our oceans and rivers - shirley its not that hard

i call BS on this, total BS

Mate, I have to say, I think you are being pretty unreasonable here.

Asking for evidence to support a claim made and whinged about endlessly is not fair. 90% of what these whingers go on about is BS and if you start holding them accountable, you are just going to pull the rug from right out under them and then what they going to do? Sit round collecting the dole, smoking weed and going to university full of other whining dogooders filling their heads with PC leftist crap? .... oh, wait, never mind.

I was looking at something last night about all the plastic in the oceans. they showed a lot of pictures and you are correct, I did not see plastic bags. Most of it seemed to be bottles and jugs of different sizes. The thing is the Big stuff floating round is not the problem. It's the little tiny particles the hard plastic gets broken down into that get caught in the stomach of animals that is the danger. Plastic bag is unsightly but isn't going to be eaten by anything. Those little coloured bits of often bright plastic, That's different.

I don't know why we are surprised at any of this. Just another greenwashed sook to be seen to be doing something rather than actually putting in the effort to do anything effective and worth while.


I'd Like to see a breakdown of how much plastic is in the actually packaging of an average weekly shop compared to the amount in the plastic bags used to carry it home. I would gaurantee there is more plastic in the milk jugs we buy every week than in the bags we carry all the groceries home in probably by a factor of 10. Won't even need to include a few bottles of soft drink and the meat that all comes plastic wrapped and trayed.... which we don't buy. There is a fine old traditional butcher in town and he hasn't been there 50 odd years because he's ripping people off. He uses a thin bit of plastic and then white paper. Same stuff I used to save and then draw on as a kid.

Chances are you won't see a plastic comparison because that would really shoot the whole Idea in the foot.