-
Shopping with plastic bags - Source: ONE News -
Watch Video
-
Related
Pressure is mounting on major supermarket operator Progressive
Enterprises to start charging customers for plastic bags.
It comes as one of the country's biggest retailers The Warehouse
announced last month that it was charging customers 10
cents for every plastic bag they use.
Earlier, Foodstuffs said they would be making shoppers pay for plastic bags, charging five cents per bag from August.
It is all part of a campaign to cut down the use of plastic bags in some of the nation's biggest shops. But Progressive Supermarkets is under fire from anti-plastic bag campaigners.
Angus Ho from the group Get Real, which is campaigning against the use of plastic bags, says Progressives must do what other retailers are doing.
"Everbody is already concerned about the environment and overuse of plastic bags so I think it's a very good timing to do this move as well," says Ho.
But Progressive Enterprises is biding its time. Bill Moore from Progressive Enterprises says that with 250,000 customers, they want to find out their views on a plastic bag ban before the company decide.
It all comes after a packaging accord was signed in 2004 to reduce plastic bag use by 20%.
The Packaging Council says this has taken 100 million plastic bags out of circulation.
But New Zealanders still throw out one billion of them every year and while that sounds like a lot the Packaging Council say the plastic bag gets an unfair wrap.
Paul Curtis from the New Zealand Packaging Council says it's fair to say that plastic bags have become something of a poster boy or an icon for environmental waste, even if that is not the case.
For the average Kiwi though, reactions are mixed on whether they are willing to pay for every plastic bag they use.
While some think that it's a great idea believing using plastic bags is a ridiculous idea others say that if this is just a ploy by the big retailers to make some extra profits, then it will only leave customers with less money in their pockets.
