Single-use plastic

NOTHING wrong with banning single-use plastic bags, but there needs to be definitions on what they are. Most people assume these are bags bought at checkouts in supermarkets.

Most supermarkets sell vegetables “loose”. You rip off a plastic bag from a roll provided, put the required vegetable in it, and get it weighed. This bag is plastic, is not biodegradable, and is single-use. If you buy five different vegetables, then five more plastic bags.

Go to a bakery, what is the bread wrapped in, yup, a single-use plastic bag, not biodegradable.

Buy a precooked chicken in a supermarket, what is it packed in, yup, you guessed it.

One could go on, but my gut feeling tells me the number of these types of bags highlighted, by far outweighs the checkout supermarket type bags that are found in the environment.

The next thing is security. For instance my family takes our own non plastic bags to have our shopping put in. Most of these were purchased overseas, from countries which have banned plastic bags already.

Most supermarkets require you leave these “somewhere” before you can enter the store. Leave bags which cost up to $20 for somebody else to pinch? If you go into a supermarket with 10 used “single-use” plastic bags, can these be used for your purchases? I bet they can.

The powers need to think all this through carefully, most plastic bags, wrappings, etc., are hazardous and non biodegradable, not just single-use shopping bags.

As for a $750,000 fine, tell that one to a corner shop owner.

ALLAN LOOSLEY

Tavua