Kicking the plastic habit
As stores around New Zealand turn their back on the plastic bag, reporter Deena Coster (right) took on a challenge to shun the convenient carrier for seven days.
It’s not like I had never contemplated saying no to plastic bags in the past. The trouble is how handy they are around the house.
Iwouldn’t say I was an addict, but it was definitely a bad habit. My willing embrace of plastic bags at the checkout and bounty hoarded in a drawer at home, based on a reasoning they would be used again.
I would have called this recycling in the past, that by using it again I was doing something good.
But it turns out I was just delaying the inevitable. At some point the bag would end up in the rubbish tip, where it would take 100 years to break down.
So yes, I admit it. I am part of the problem.
For decades I have been responsible for sending hundreds of plastic bags to suffer the same, slow fate, causing environmental damage in the process.
Plastic bags have been highlighted as a blight on the landscape but also a danger to the health of the soil and wildlife, with fish and animals at risk of being poisoned by the toxic product.
Their usage is even illegal in some countries. In Kenya using a plastic bag could land you behind bars for four years or issued a
$40,000 fine.
In New Zealand, the future of the single-use plastic bag has been in the national spotlight lately, with supermarkets and businesses around the country announcing an intention to say goodbye to what used to be a store staple. On Monday, 10 Countdown supermarkets went plastic bag free, with the intention all 182 stores will follow suit at the end of the year.
New World supermarkets will be doing the same by the end of 2018 and Mitre 10 announced its decision for all 128 stores, including Mitre 10 Mega and Hammer Hardware, to go plastic bag free from July 1.
With the corporate consciousness pricked about the futility of the plastic bag, a product which is used on average for a measly 12 minutes, how easy is it for the average household to give them up?
It’s not like I had never contemplated saying no to plastic bags in the past. The trouble is how handy they are around the house.
Bags transform into rubbish bin liners, a quick and easy carrier for wet or dirty clothing or a receptacle for those smelly gym shoes.
They’ve been good to me, but I kind of always knew they were not great for the environment.
So when I was offered a work assignment to trial what life might be like living free of the plastic bag, I accepted the challenge.
To be honest, I have been somewhat prepared for a while. I own a set of reusable bags and there’s a cardboard box as well, which both call the boot of my car home.
The night I decided to say no to more plastic bags, I arrived home and counted how many I had left in the drawer, working out how I was going to ration them ahead of rubbish day.
A day which ironically involves using the New Plymouth District Council-issued red plastic rubbish sack to get rid of the weekly household waste.
So almost immediately, I feel like a failure on my new resolve to steer clear of the carrier bag.
It seems as soon as you become conscious of plastic, it’s all you see.
The stuff is everywhere – it holds our slices of bread together, wraps
around numerous grocery products and is used as a form of protection to keep the newspaper dry.
I use one form of it to wrap up lunches or cover the leftovers.
Plastic seems to permeate our lives but planning appears to be your biggest ally if you want to start culling it.
My first step was to ensure I had a reusable bag on me at all times. I took a reusable bag to work with my lunch and then stashed it in my locker for any shopping errands that might come up.
But it’s the little things that catch out the uninitiated. It happened to
me during a recent visit to the supermarket.
Although I went prepared with my reusable bag, I was flummoxed when I got to the produce aisle.
What was I going to put my apples in? I had no alternative but to carry them loosely to the checkout and then home, at the risk of finding them a bit worse for wear at the bottom of the bag.
I felt good walking out of the supermarket, plastic bag free. But the semi-smugness soon rubbed off as I unpacked the shopping and realised the chicken breast I got from the deli counter was wrapped up in plastic.
And I didn’t even bat an eye lid as it was handed over. Rookie mistake.
On the whole, I found it relatively easy to avoid using single plastic bags and transition to reusable bags instead.
I’m confident I can stick to my new reality but realise it’s only one small step. My next challenge then? To ditch using plastic food wrap.
Wish me luck.