Ryan Bridge: Early Edition host on whether supermarkets are price-gouging customers with paper bag prices

Newstalk ZB's own Ryan Bridge has hit out at the cost of paper bags at the supermarket.

Woolworths currently charges customers 40c per paper bag after plastic bags were banned from further circulation in July 2019.

The retailer has defended these prices - claiming the cost is designed to encourage customers to bring their own bags.

The Early Edition host says these bags are 'annoying' to use - and they don't properly carry your essentials.

"Forget eggs, forget anything else... just put a two litre bottle of slippery, wet milk into this thing and it can't handle it. By the time you get to your car, it's all over your floor and you've actually got to carry it like a baby."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, I've got to get you across what the Labor
Party is just doing. It's actually, it's actually quite interesting.
And the huddle standing by. We have got Jack Tame
and Nick Mills with us this evening right now. It's
coming up twenty four away from six. Now, listen, paper
bags at the supermarke. Okay, here on our staff at
Newstalk ZB, we've got someone who's very upset about the
exorbitant cost of paper bags at the supermarket, so much

(00:20):
so that it has caused all kinds of commentary all
day and a column in the Herald and everything. Now,
what's going on is Wilworth is charging you thirty nine
cents a pop for your paper bags at the moment.
They won't tell us how much of that is a
profit that they're making. The person who is upset is,
of course, newstalg ZB early edition host Ryan Bridge. Hello, Ryan, Hey, Heather, Hell,
are y yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Good?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Think you know what's your problem here? Because you've got
a lot of problems. But is your primary problem that
you think they're making money on these bags off us?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
No, just that they're annoying. They're annoying, they don't carry
what you need. Have you ever tried putting, like, forget
anything else, forget eggs, forget anything. Just milk. Just put
a two letter bottle of slippery, wet milk into this thing,
and then it can't handle it. By the time you
get to your car, it's all over the floor and
you've actually got to carry it like a baby. The

(01:07):
number of times I've walked out like it almost like
I've got triplets. If you've got three bags, you know
you're carrying it, You're waddling through the car park. It's
like it's just mission impossible. And I know people will say,
bring your own bags, but I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Hang on, hang on, can't you buy those? You can
get the flash ones at the counter as well, you
know the ones that are like if you're at all
worth the green ones, they cost you maybe like a
dollar or so, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, but then that's a dollar. Then that's three dollars
for three bags. And then I'll and then I'll forget
and I'll be back again, and that's three bucks every
time I go.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I suspect that your primary problem, because like I say,
there's a lot here. Your primary problem is you actually
want the plastic bags back.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, just sort of just say it, right, I sort
to do. I mean, I understand. Look, apparently there's one
hundred and fifty million plastic bags not in the ocean
because we're doing this, et cetera. But if you look
at it globally, are we ridding the oceans of plastic?

Speaker 1 (02:02):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Is New Zealand doing It's a little tiny bit, yes,
a slither of a slither? Is that making an odor
of difference? No? So can I have three plastic bags
when I go shopping next place?

Speaker 1 (02:17):
I'm kind of with you, I've gotta be honest, I'm
kind of with you because at least the plastic bags
you could get, like did you ever buy those like
long sock things? And you can like ram them in, right,
and so you ended up with a gigantic stuffed kind
of yeah, And it was much more efficient to store
your plastic bags in that long sock than it is
to try and keep all of these awful brown paper bags.
I've got a stack of them.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well that's the thing. And also, do you actually reuse
the because I definitely used to reuse the plastic ones. Yeah,
but you use them, but you use them all sorts
of things. But I do not I don't think I've
ever reused a paper no, no, in my life. No,
and then torn to shreds.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
And then what I do is sort of every few
months I take out like a whole bunch of them
and chuck them.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
In the bin.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
And it is a lot, Ryan, there's a lot of paper.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, I mean, and the worst part, Heather, Actually, I
haven't mentioned my biggest problem.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
You've got a big problem here.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I could go, they're printing little Christmas trees on these
paper bags now for Christmas, so you'll to save the planet.
We're chopping down trees to make bags and then printing
little trees on top of them. I mean, it just
makes no sense. I get that.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
I couldn't understand why that was upsetting for you other
than maybe you just like ragroot.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Well. The cost, I mean that is because that's the
cheapest bag that you can buy as far as I'm aware,
the che which just.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Goes to show Ryan how much they're ripping you off.
But with a margin that they're putting on it. Right,
if they can afford to them print it, they're not
doing it that cheap?

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Are they give me plastic? Give me plastic? I'm sick
of it.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Thank you, Ryan, appreciate it. I knew it was about
the plastic in the end, Ryan Bridge News Do. It'd
be Early Edition.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Host for more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live
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