Ryan Bridge: A few questions about the plastic bag ban

Remember the excitement, the pride at being first, the proclamations of cleaning up our world and making it better for tomorrow.

I'm talking about the single plastic use bag ban of 2018. Remember that?

A few salient points to note this morning, six years on from when it was announced.

There's a report out this morning on plastics.

The use of plastic is expected to triple globally by 2060 most of it in Africa and Asia. Plastic waste will also triple by 2060 half of it will end up in the landfill less than 1/5 of it will be recycled.

So well done. Our Pak'nSave efforts, we're really doing well for the world.

Who's profiting from this? That's the other thing I wonder, I don't know how much supermarkets make every time I forget my reusable plastic bags and I have to buy the paper ones.

But the price of the paper one the other day that I paid was 40 cents. And I can remember when they first started selling them, it was like 10 or 20 cents.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Remember the excitement, the pride at being first, the proclamations
of cleaning up our world and making it better for tomorrow.
I'm talking about the single plastic use bag band on
twenty eighteen, Remember that. A few salient points to note
this morning, sixty years on from when it was announced.
There's a report out this morning on plastics. The use

(00:23):
of plastic is expected to treble globally by twenty sixty,
most of it in Africa and Asia. Plastic waste will
also treble by twenty sixty. Half of it will end
up in the landfill. Less than a fifth of it
will be recycled. So well done, you know, our pack

(00:43):
and save efforts, We're really doing well for the world.
Who's profiting from this? That's the other thing I wonder.
I don't know how much supermarkets make every time I
forget my reusable plastic bags and I have to buy
the paper ones. But the price of the paper one
the other day that I paid was four cents, And
I can remember when they first started telling them, it
was like ten or twenty cents, So there's been a

(01:05):
bit of inflation going on since then. And now they've
got Christmas trees printed on them. How much extra is
that costing. I don't want a Christmas tree on my
paper bag, thank you very much. I want the paper
bag not to break just because I put some wet
milk in it, so annoying. In Australia, coson Wall was

(01:27):
apparently profit. This was after they changed their rules profit
seventy one million dollars a year off their reusable bags.
Now I don't know what the number is here. I
have no idea, but I would have thought we'd be
asking ourselves a few questions. Do I want us going

(01:47):
back to plastic bags? No, I don't necessarily want us
going back to plastic bags, but could we please know
a couple of things. Where are our bags actually ending
up in the ocean in the first place or was
that other people's bags? You know? Were you throwing your
plastic bag in the ocean when you went and checked
the beach? Were the bags from Countdown, New Zealand? I

(02:11):
don't know. And how much are the supermarkets making out
of us for the bags that break before we get
them to the boot of our cars. Just a couple
of things I'd like to note. For more from early
edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to news talks. It'd
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