The great plastic bag debate

[admin]

As someone that has worked in the waste industry and at landfill sites on and off over the last 25+ years, I can only laugh at the "single use" plastic bag ban. Anyone that thinks this ban is helping the environment is very badly wrong.

Firstly, its great for the supermarkets, they save a fortune on paying for the bags they have been giving out for free. Now they get to charge you either 15 cents or 99 cents for a bag. And yes, they are making plenty of profit on those figures.

The claim of "single use" is an interesting one. I give all mine to a local junior football club who reuse them in a variety of different ways. They can never get enough. I suppose they will now have to buy them, another expense in a rapidly shrinking budget. Probably most reuse is by people using them as bin liners. I would recommend taking out shares in plastic garbage bag companies, as their products are flying off the shelves at the moment. They are of course much thicker than the old supermarket bags, which compact down to literally nothing. Actual garbage bags are much thicker.

Australia's contribution to world pollution is tiny. Plastic in rivers and oceans is not a problem here, the problem comes from India and Asia. But just like coal, we are determined to punish our citizens for the actions of others.

There is no money in recycling unless it is subsidised by the government, which means in other words the taxpayer pays for it. Most of our recyclables end up in landfill. Don't believe me ? I used to watch it every day, and that was at a site that had a brand new recycling centre financed by Visyboard. With of course a grand opening with all the top brass of government and industry. They would start at 5 am, and by 8.30 couldn't keep up and directed all trucks to dump in landfill. A breakdown ? All recycling trucks to landfill.

But what about all that stuff I am washing out with hot water and putting in my recycle bin ? Surely they are recycling that ? I am sorry to say that just one bin full of contaminated recycling dumped in the truck ruins the load. Off to the landfill. And with the cost of dumping rubbish, more and more people are dumping rubbish in their recycling bin. A recycling truck empties hundreds of bins before it is full, and it only takes one bin to contaminate the lot.

The Victorian Andrew's Government has plans to ban all plastic bags. So you could find yourself in a desperate situation out walking your dog with a "single use" bag in your hand. A greenie spots you and calls the police. The Special Response Team surrounds you......" Drop the bag, don't put anything in it or we will shoot". They can taser the old girl volunteering at the Salvo's OP shop who gives you your purchase in a "single use" bag. Though it should be funny watching watching the rich lefty lady walking her pedigree dog to go and get a Soy Milk Latte. It craps and she has to put it in a tupperware container. Of course you would normally drop the crap bag in the bin out the front but thats wrecking the planet, so she will have to take her tuppershit in with her

As funny as that scenario is, Woolworths have not ruled out having to take your own plastic containers to their stores in the future.

My hope is that people start waking up to the supermarkets. In general, their meat is third rate. Go and buy it from a local butcher or meat wholesaler. Their produce is crap, and covered in more plastic than what they supply as "single use" bags. You can get better at a fruit shop. With all that out of the way, only give the supermarkets half the money you were giving them.

About 10, or even less years ago, I can remember they tried to bring in biodegradable bags and charge the customer. There was outrage and getting charged, and the idea was quickly canned. Now we are getting charged for plastic bags and the supermarkets wonder why there has been a backlash. They could have easily replaced all "single use" bags with biodegradable bags. But hey, why would you when you can sell plastic bags to people ?

[alpha0ne]

My hope is that people start waking up to the supermarkets. In general, their meat is third rate. Go and buy it from a local butcher or meat wholesaler. Their produce is crap, and covered in more plastic than what they supply as "single use" bags. You can get better at a fruit shop. With all that out of the way, only give the supermarkets half the money you were giving them.

ppl are starting to wake up to woolies and coles, in Mandurah there is a store called '' that opened a few years ago, meat is a little more expensive but you pay for quality, and their fresh fruit/veg really is fresh, keeps in the crisper for a month no worries compared to a few days for the shite they sell @ the big two, Gilberts are still using plastic shopping bags but rarely need them due to them selling insulated/sealable bags with Gilberts branding for a dollar

The only time I ever buy from coles/woolies is for non food items

[Bigfella237]

In my area the 'work for the disabled' mob have a factory and sort all the council contracted recycling by hand, it all gets dumped on a conveyor and goes around and around until picked and sorted, then anything left over gets land-filled. I assume there are significant tax dollars being thrown at that little operation but at least it's effective and providing employment.

The local W supermarket here has an 'amnesty' of sorts and are once again giving-out disposable plastic bags for free, but I think that was a temporary measure to quell the customer revolt, no doubt they will keep trying it on until it goes unnoticed, much like politicians sneaking in new laws and such, but that's another story.

The big supermarkets don't give a crap about the environment, it's just yet another money grab... 10c per customer multiplied by how many million customers per day (franchise-wide) = a very nice little earner!

Andrew

[mtv]

Same as many, I re-used the supermarket plastic bags for a multitude of purposes, mostly as rubbish bags.

People are still going to need rubbish bags/bin liners, so now we'll need to be forced to buy them.

Speaking of which, the 15 cent bags Woolies now provide are going to be a far greater threat to landfill than what they replaced.

Woolies (and I presume Coles also) expect shoppers to return them to place them in provided bins.... like, how many people will actually do that?... bugger all!

Most of those bags will end up in land fill and from what I can tell, they don't look like they'll break down like the old ones.

I really don't see how any of this will benefit the environment... only add to the profit of the supermarkets and bag manufacturers.

[mkhannah]

Meanwhile they keep churning out plastic loyalty cards.....

[trash]

Boo hoo... I want you to all stop using paper bags because they are cutting down trees to make them. You should "save the trees" and use plastic bags.

Oh wait... what year is this? Oh shit, that trip I took in the 70's completely erased the 1980's.

Oh boo hoo, I want you all to stop using plastic bags because they are choking the dolphins. You should use.... ummm.... bigger plastic bags!

Here's a fvcking go. Want to solve the problem.... Stick 100% deposit on the bags just like plastic bottles and make the supermarkets recover the plastic bags and give cashback on them.
Then the bags will really get recycled.

Boo hoo... shit is filling up landfills. FMD! Farrrk. You can dig a big fvcking hole in Outback Australia and fill that fvcker with everything and cover it up.
On the biggest map of Australia you can find, that landfil will still take up less space the this full stop ---> .
If you really want to make it useful, sort the shit into catagories and then bury it in different holes. In the future, what is useful will be mined.
Imagine all the 1970's and 80's Televisions all buried together in a big hole. Gold prices alone would make it worth the effort to dig up those crushed PCB's and smelt them.

Plastics.. think of all those compressed milk bottles and television chassis. Lots of carbon nicely locked away just waiting for somebody to dig it up and turn it back into crude oil.

Environmentalism is usually taking the easiest route. Bury the shit and dig it up later when it's worth something. In the mean time, it ain't going nowhere.
Faux environmentalism costs shitloads and wastes time, money, energy and effort.


Now where the fvck are my paper bags? They were recyclable. They were made from trees which are a carbon sink and when they aren't recycled, they go back into the soil as a carbon sink.

Fvcking Greentards !

[shred]

The single use plastic bag ban came to Tasmania years ago. Now people come out of the supermarket with their trolleys piled high with new "reusable" bags that they buy each week for 10c each and containing probably 10x the amount of plastic that one single use bag contained.

In our household, we re-used old throw-away supermarket bags all over the place, but now we have to buy suitable bags by the roll.

It's just an exercise in the government being seen to do something about a perceived problem, while actually making it much worse.

[Onefella]

Up here in the NT we banned plastic bags 7 years ago. Our family uses cheap "China" bags from a variety store for our shopping. Works quite well.

We also have container refunds like South Australia, and that seems to work quite well also.

..and we had a wicked fireworks night here last night.

Just sayin'

[Uncle Fester]

There is no money in recycling unless it is subsidised by the government, which means in other words the taxpayer pays for it.

LOL, well if that is true then it is certainly not the first time that government incentives use Tax money to fund the rich, in this case the richest Aussie in 2017:

I agree that this plastic bag ban will make a few more people rich, so there is definitely money in 'recycling' but this time it is not subsidised by the government but directly from the consumer.

It seems everything that gets decided lately is making a handful of people more richer, and the rest of us a little bit poorer.
I wonder why

Anyway we will just have to deal with it and it is actually not a big deal.
Germany managed to deal with it already in the 1970's and their world didn't collapse and are still Europe's powerhouse today.

When I arrived back home in 2001 we brought a whole bunch of thin cloth bags, that I continued to use for shopping and everybody thought I came from Mars or somewhere.
Took us a while to get used to all the plastic.
A cloth bag lasts easily a whole year. Those Aldi plastic bags last ages too if you are reasonably carefull with them.

...and while we are at it I still miss the crates of Beer in proper 0.5l bottles, that I simply swapped for full ones in the store.

This indiviual bottle recycling 10c shit drive me nuts here and I am back to Home Brewing again. My re-usable 'bottles' have a volume of 19 litres

[cobra679]

So do the checkout people still pack your items and you hand them your bags? or do we pack the shit ourselves?

[mtv]

So do the checkout people still pack your items and you hand them your bags? or do we pack the shit ourselves?

They pack it for you still.

Gotta wonder how long for before someone complains about having to handle bags they have no idea where they have been previously.

[Uncle Fester]

I actually prefer to pack my shit myself. One more reason why I shop mostly in Aldi.
I hate it when they mix the cold stuff and squash the bread and those who ARE careful take so terribly long.
It won't be long when there are only automated checkout machines anyhow.

[lsemmens]

Speaking of recycling, I took all our drink cans in to the recycling centre today, they were all in those "single use" bags which the recycling centre used to recycle, the can't any more because China isn't taking our landfill any more........

[VroomVroom]

In Japan its the opposite , you buy a small pack of tissues and you are forced to accept it in a plastic bag. With household rubbish very little recycling happens there either its collected every day and sent to the local hi temp incinerator.....

i cant stand Coles or Woolies i bet they were the key drivers behind this whole plastic bag ripoff. 99% of the time we go to Aldi and only buy dry cat food at Woolies because our lazy arse cats dont like the Aldi equivalent

[lsemmens]

Time was when you went to the shop ordered your 1lb of whatever, and the grocer would weigh it out. Drop it in a paper bag and home you'd come. If you were a kid, often with a biccie or slice of fritz as a reward. Those bags also rarely ended up in landfill, or, if they did, would soon bio-degrade. And we call ourselves "green"

[ol' boy]

My plastic bags were never single use, so i object.
The Deli and Fruit and Vege still using plastic bags, so, what happened there?

I hope it makes a difference, but the most rubbish i see, is empty disused take away food and drink containers.

[exited]

I found the 15c bags were better and easier to carry because they didn't spaghettify my fingers like the freebies did. Chances are I'll reuse them for the next few weeks so the overall output of plastic disposal from me would be less I guess.

Apart from that I can't see any difference for the environment. Still, happy to adapt

[fandtm666]

pft couldnt give a toss , been using the insulated bags for donkeys
because i was sick of the plastic bags breaking etc.

[LeroyPatrol]

They pack it for you still.

Gotta wonder how long for before someone complains about having to handle bags they have no idea where they have been previously.

They already are....

Leroy

[admin]

They already are....

Leroy

Yep, lots of it.

The SDA (shoppies union) has instructed their checkout staff members that they do not have to touch any cloth/fabric bag that they think it not clean/hygienic/smells of petrol from being in the boot etc.

They have also instructed them that they are not to fill cloth/fabric bags until they are full (even if instructed to by customer)because they are too heavy for them to lift.



Of course the supermarkets could have avoided all this by simply replacing the "single use" bags with similar bags that are biodegradable.

Obviously that's far too easy, doesn't upset customers but doesn't make them money. I have to laugh at the people with the cloth/fabric bags who have used the same bag for years and dont wash them......lucky all the food is embedded in a ton of plastic.