Kiwis are ready for the plastic bag ban says Briscoes' Rod Duke

Tuesday, 2 July 2019

The ban on plastic bags is probably just the beginning says the head of homewares retailer Briscoes.

Briscoe Group chief executive Rod Duke said the plastic bag ban, which came into effect on on Monday, had really been driven by consumer sentiment over the issue of plastic pollution.

'The notion of discontinuing single use plastic bags had resonated with the community and it has been talked about for quite some time so everyone was pretty well prepared for it.'

Consumers have been given a range of options as the plastic bag ban kicks in.

The company's stores, which include Briscoes, Living and Giving and Rebel Sport have been offering customers reusable bags at cost rather than opting for paper bags, he said.

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Briscoes Group boss Rod Duke says New Zealanders are ready to move beyond single use plastic bags.

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'For us, it's neutral cost issue. We sell them at cost, so we don't make any money out of the bags we sell,' Duke said.

Supermarkets charge between 15 cents and 20c for paper bags while other retailers have begun to hand out the bags for free.

First Retail Group managing director Chris Wilkinson said some of the larger retail companies such as Farmers were absorbing the price of paper bags to maintain the experience that came from shopping at a bricks and mortar store.

'Retail needs to be an experiential process,' Wilkinson said.

'That delight of going into a store, selecting a product, having interactions with people, that sense of occasion is really important.'

Overseas, retailers had moved away from bags all together, he said.

'I was with a colleague in the United Kingdom recently and she bought something that was quite expensive and it just gets handed across to you. All the fun and the occasion disappeared.'

But Wilkinson said he hadn't heard significant complaints from retailers over the move to paper bags in New Zealand.

First Retail Group managing director Chris Wilkinson said paper and cotton bags were still needed to continue the shopping experience.

Supermarkets were charging for paper bags to recoup the cost ., he said.

'For the other businesses, like fashion businesses, they have always been used to paying the price for plastic bag and many moved to paper quite early,' he said.

'It is really just accepted as a cost of doing business.'

The applied to all new bags with plastic up to 70 microns in thickness and handles, including light-weight plastic bags, heavier boutique-style bags and the 'emergency' alternative bags offered by some supermarkets.

It also extended to bags made of 'degradable' plastic.

Stores that flouted the ban faced fines of up to $100,000.

Countdown sustainability general manager Kiri Hannifin, said almost 90 per cent of customers were bringing their own bags or did not use a bag at all when they shopped.

Own bag use had increased each month since May 2018 when Countdown began phasing out single-use plastic carrier bags, Hannifin said.

The company had removed nearly 1900 tonnes of plastic bags from circulation since its shift to alternative options.

Pak 'n Save went plastic bag-free in January, offering customers paper bags, reusable bags or boxes as alternatives.

However, researchers were debating whether paper was really better than plastic.

A 2011 study by the United Kingdom Environment Agency found the environmental impact of all types of bags was dominated by resource use and the production stage.

The study found paper bags could be the worst of the bags researchers looked at because of the difficulty in reusing them.

According to a report by the Scottish government, the process of making paper bags takes almost four times as much water, and releases more than three times as many greenhouse gas emissions than conventional plastic bags.

The UK study found paper bags need to be reused three times if they were to have less of an environmental impact than a conventional plastic bag used once, but the study found 'no significant reuse of paper bags,' even as bin liners.