Plastic shopping bags. Credit: evelynishere/flickr

By Rich Bowden:

A recent survey conducted by journalism students linked to the University of Technology in Sydney has found the city’s shoppers use far more plastic bags than their counterparts in similar cities.

The Sydney survey of more than 4000 shoppers, which was conducted in March this year as part of a Global and Environmental Journalism Initiative (GEJI) survey of shoppers across Melbourne, Hong Kong and London, found that Sydney customers used 2.5 new plastic bags per customer compared to 1.95 in Melbourne, 1.79 in London and 0.98 in Hong Kong, according to the report.

In a statement on the GEJI website and reported by the university, UTS international student Shushu He said the city’s voluntary education program to reduce the amount of plastic bags had been ineffective.

“The results for the two major Australian supermarket chains, which between them control almost 60 per cent of the Australian supermarket retail market, were even higher than the Sydney wide figures,” Ms He said. “Coles customers used the most plastic bags, averaging 2.5 per person, with Woolworths customers using 2.37 per person. Customers at the German owned Aldi supermarket, which charges for plastic bags, used only .59 bags each.

She said big supermarkets are generally failing to carry out policies designed to reduce the use of plastic bags.

“The survey showed that on a widespread basis, Woolworths are failing to implement their official policy of not offering plastic bags to customers who purchase very few items. Direct observations of hundreds of cashiers at supermarkets across Sydney and Melbourne revealed that many checkout cashiers ignore or are not aware of the policy. Coles, who do not have a firm policy on this issue but leave it to the discretion of cashiers and shoppers, also regularly offer plastic bags to shoppers with one or two items.”

In a surprise finding, inner-city residents were found to be amongst the highest users of supermarket plastic bags, the report found.

“Unexpectedly, the highest percentage of people using new plastic bags was in Sydney’s inner west, which has the highest percentage of green party voters in Australia. 83. 2 per cent of customers in Newtown and Glebe used new plastic bags and only 9.5 per cent used reusable green bags, again lower than in any other area.”

When presented with the findings, a spokesperson for Woolworths admitted a lack of staff training but also added the problem was in changing the behaviour of the customer.

“The challenge is really behavioural – getting the customer to bring the reusable bags to the shop,” Ms Buchanan said.

“The problem is the customer doesn’t always know when they will do their shopping next.”

“Most people shop two and a half times a week. The days of one big family visit to the shopping centres on the weekend are really over – it doesn’t really happen anymore.”

“Staff training is a huge challenge, she said. “We have to keep in mind that we have a turnover of 49 percent of staff every year.”

“The other challenge is customers who want plastic. They may have uses for the bags in the home as bin liners or for their pets.”

Tags: coles, garbage, GEJI, plastic bag, pollution, supermarket plastic bag, uts, woolworths