Hawkesby: Plastic bag ban? No, now you just pay

You can still get your groceries in plastic bags, you're just now paying them for them! Photo: Getty Images

I was surprised to see when I went to Countdown the other day, bigger, thicker, more robust plastic bags than ever before, says Kate Hawkesby.

I'm talking about the ones you can buy if you forget your reusable bags.

These ones are supposedly multi-use because they're bigger and thicker.

But as I looked at them I couldn't work out how they're any less likely to wrap around a dolphin than the single-use ones.

I also wondered how it's really going plastic-free, when you're still offering plastic.

I get that it's early days and it's a trial and these things take time, but I do worry about the green washing going on here when we talk about saving the planet and the turtles.

The PR peeps put their sad faces on while explaining we've got to start helping the environment - when in actual fact, they're still providing plastic, they're just making money off it. At 15 cents a pop.

You can still get your groceries in plastic bags, you're just now paying them for them!

The original thinner so called single-use bags are of course not single use. Anyone with a child in nappies, or runny food containers, or bins needing liners, knows that these bags are used more than once.

They get rotated round our house for several things: school lunches, carrying things to the car or to school, carting rubbish, snotty tissues and so on. But the larger point here is, plastic is plastic, and I just wonder how disingenuous it is to claim the moral high ground on eradicating it, when you're actually still serving it at the checkout.

The campaign of "ban the bag" seems laudable, and it's always pleasing to see big business making eco-conscious choices and decisions - but to truly care for the environment and banning the plastic, don't they also need to address the fruit and vege aisle and all the pre-packaged fresh produce wrapped to the eyeballs in plastic?

It's not like we're short of alternatives these days either.

Smaller businesses are opting for more eco-friendly choices, even if it costs them more to do so. Innocent packaging, biodegradable coffee cups and lids, keep cups, sustainable natural materials, paper - the list is endless.

With all these options available it surprises me that the corporate crusaders of banning plastic have furnished the checkouts with even more plastic. If you're taking away plastic, take it all away.

Don't offer more - offer a more expensive jute option which is truly multi-use, or better yet, offer nothing and make customers carry their groceries individually to the car by hand if they have to.

Because until it starts hurting and inconveniencing the customer, you're not banning plastic at all.