[First filed: Oct 27, 2010 @ 10:31]
Simon Corbell has announced the end of light plastic shopping bags with the final ban to be in place from 1 November next year.
Before panicking bear in mind there will be many exemptions:
The Plastic Shopping Bags Ban Bill 2010 will ban the supply of plastic shopping bags of 35 microns or less, generally the type distributed through supermarkets, grocery stores and takeaway food outlets.
A range of bags will be unaffected by the ban, including barrier bags of the type dispensed from a roll to hold items such as fruit or meat and heavier retail bags used in department, footwear and clothing stores.
The Government expects that retailers will provide a range of bags to consumers to replace light weight plastic bags including reuseable ‘green’ bags, paper bags and biodegradable bags which meet Australian Standard AS 4736-2006. The sale of plastic bin liners for waste containers in the home is unaffected by the ban.
I’m still not sure how we’re getting greasy take-away home without making a mess in the car, but we’re going to find out.
UPDATE: The Greens’ Caroline Le Couteur has expressed her pleasure at this piece of Green policy being adopted.
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What’s Your opinion?
31 October 2011 the last day for light plastic shopping bags
Yeah, I’d really rather not have to buy specific bin bags.
I carry one of those folded up shopping bags with me (the benefits of being a woman and owning a handbag) and its pretty easy to deal with.
Surprised no one has come up with the picking up dog poo line yet.
Change, oh no!
I always find it funny how willing some people are to kick up a fuss over life’s trivialities.
Maybe I can contribute… Yes that’s it, if I forget my green bags, I’ll have to drive back home to get them! Personal responsibility be damned, take that environmental policy!
Just another tax on the poor masquerading as an environmental measure. Pensioners who use the free bags as bin liners will now have to buy them. That’s in addition to the escalating electricity prices caused by “Canberra loves 40%”, carbon tax talk and the other green measures. It seems the ACT government has been spooked by the urban myths about dead whales and dolphins being cut open and thousands of plastic bags falling out. We’re being sent to the poorhouse just to give a powerful, upper middle class minority a warm fuzzy feeling.
Oh yes, and the Productivity Commission recommended against this!
TVStar said :
All cars are environmentally unfriendly, not just 4WD’s.
So I take it you dont live in a house, walk everywhere, done have any electrical appliances?
What does a first class ticket have to do with the environment?
Holier than thou?
OK, plasic bags are a bit of a token gesture but its a start as they are such a waste of plastic & bad for bird & marine life in particular. They should be banned.
Now the Government needs to look at packaging on all products from things like individually packed batteries to these meal for one things that come in a foam cup (non-recyclable) & have a little plastic spoon ect that comes with them. Are people not capable of taking a spoon with them to work that we need this?
There is so much waste in the food industry that is id bordering on discraceful.
AngryHenry said :
Otherwise it’s rather hard to throw a handful of green beans, snow peas, chilli peppers etc. into your trolley. Obviously you don’t need to stretch a plastic bag around a watermelon.
trickyxr said :
Which is why if I forget my green bags I always stumble out of Aldi trying to balance 15 cans of tuna on one arm.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the KFA’s health, he is a seriously fast and shiny puppy.
His behaviour, on the other hand…
What crap! What about 4wd’s, MacMansions, first-class tickets for Department of Climate Change staff to travel overseas to work out how to end global warming?
Canberra – feel good initiatives that make people, who do more damage to the environment than any other people in Australia, feel better about their white trash lifestyles.
When we ban flat screen TVs that are made in highly polluting factories in China I’ll get on board with this garbage – or does that not matter because it’s out of sight?
Does Lin Hatfield Dodds still have here 4wd?
What a joke, Supermarkets will just bring in the heavier plastic bags and charge the consumer, same as aldi
I don’t get the idea of plastic bags for most fruit and veg, mother nature does a pretty good job of packaging them herself.
However, I do understand the need for plastic bags when I buy chicken necks for my dogs because for some reason the orignal plastic bag housing them ends up compromised and I end up with nasty chicken juice all over everything.
Woo – hoo! About time. South Australia introduced this 2 years ago while the rest of the country kept advocating the purposes of the plastic bag!
Most people have those recycable green bags now anyway, so hopefully this won’t be too controversial! My impression of Canberra – after 3 years – is that it’s a far more eco-friendly city than elsewhere in the country (except for those old buses .. ); most people (and some large workplaces) have a compost system of some description and an enormous amount of people use a bike as preferred transport so it’s great that this has come about!
Oh, John Boy – is that a tin of ‘pal’ dog food I see? Do you know how bad that crap is? it’s like feeding your pooch a big mac every day!
“I’m still not sure how we’re getting greasy take-away home without making a mess in the car.”
Save the planet: put a basket on your bike and use that for the take-away run. Bikes are easily hosed off. 🙂
If the food you buy is that greasy then I’d be more worried about your arteries, not the car’s interior!
I am curious why the placky bags used to carry fruit/veg are exempt from this new law. Surely they could be repaced by recycled paper bags?
Oh okay, now I’ll go and buy plastic trash bags rather than using the plastic shopping bags as binliners. This policy will work….(for the bag manufacturers and retailers)…