A major Australian supermarket chain yesterday set a third deadline for ending free plastic bags for shoppers, balancing customer anger at an additional shopping expense with environmentalists’ demands for corporate action against plastic pollution.
Coles has been handing out reusable plastic bags to most of its customers since July 1, when it introduced a ban on single-use plastic bags. It initially told customers they would be charged A$0.15 (US$0.11) for the reusable bags, starting on July 8.
Coles shifted the demise of free reusable to Wednesday, but on Wednesday it postponed that decision indefinitely.
“This is insane @Coles. The only good part of this was the 15c charge, which would change people’s behaviour over time. Without it you have ONLY brought in thicker plastic bags,” Craig Reucassel said on Twitter.
Another, John Wren, said: “Dear @Coles, I will be shopping exclusively at @woolworths & @ALDIAustralia until you enforce your plastic-bags ban.”
With threats of a shopping boycott by environmentally minded shoppers, Coles yesterday said that customers would start paying for bags on Aug. 29.
“I appreciate this transition phase is taking longer than anticipated, but it is absolutely the right thing to do by our customers,” Coles managing director John Durkan said in a statement to staff.
Coles and rival Woolworths account for about 70 percent of Australian supermarket trade.
They announced in June new goals to reduce plastic products and packaging in response to requests from customers for a greener shopping experience.
Before they took action, half of Australia’s eight states and territories had already banned single-use plastic shopping bags by law.
From July 1, Queensland and Western Australia joined South Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory with state-wide bans, but New South Wales and Victoria — where more than half of Australians live — have resisted change.
Greenpeace spokeswoman Zoe Deans cautiously welcomed Coles’ latest deadline.
“It sounds like initially they paid too much attention to the vocal minority and I think the sheer scale of the outrage yesterday and this morning has shown them what Australians actually think,” Deans said. “It’s confusing and frustrating for customers that they have been flip-flopping on this issue and we really want to see them make a solid commitment to actually doing what they said they would do and ban the bags for good.”
University of Melbourne marketing expert Simon Bell said the policy reversals by Coles demonstrated inconsistency and unreliability, but said he expected the reputational damage to the Coles brand would be short-lived.
Additional reporting by AFP
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