Bag rage as Australia curbs plastic
CANBERRA (AP) — Australian supermarket workers have found themselves at the front line of an angry consumer backlash over moves to ban single-use plastic bags, with a vocal minority abusing cashiers and one customer wrapping his hands around an employee’s throat, union officials said yesterday.
Retail giants Woolworths and Coles, which account for around 70 percent of the Australian supermarket trade, announced last month new goals to reduce plastic products and packaging in response to customers wanting a greener shopping experience.
But their employees’ union — Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association — said some customers had reacted badly to free single-use plastic bags being replaced by 15 Australian cent reusable bags.
One customer took his anger over a lack of free plastic bags out on a female staff member at a Woolworths supermarket at the west coast city of Mandurah on June 22 — two days after the ban began in Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland states, the union’s Western Australia assistant secretary Ben Harris said.