It's good plastic straws are being banned.

I'd also like to see lollipop sticks banned, such as the Chupa Chups ones. They appear to be plastic and could be changed to wood, like iceblock sticks.

As a frequent walker, they're one of the pieces of rubbish I see most frequently lying on the ground.

Its countdown that are banning the sale of the straws in packets that people buy for personal use. They are still selling products that come with straws such as tetrapak drinks. They are being selective on what they are banning, and I imagine that the product margin is driving this.

Further so far they are only doing stuff that doesnt effect them. They are still using cling films and plastic as vehicle to package their own products. I would have preferred to have the plastic in the produce section eliminated before the carry bags as they are actually single use, opposed to the carry bags which are used for all sorts of things.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2018 05:38AM by Plates.

I wondered what I was going to use instead of supermarket plastic bags for spare shoes and laundry bag when travelling but am simply using the $1 cloth supermarket bags bought especially for that purpose instead, and throwing them in the wash as needed.

Gosh, J1, your mention of cloth shoe bags reminds me of my school days when we carried our plimsolls to school in a drawstring bag! Does anyone here remember plimsolls, or what did you call them? In the region of England where I lived for my first 8 years (Bristol), we called them dabs, but then I moved to Middlesex, near London, and they were called plimsolls. Canvas lace-up shoes for use in the gym and on sports fields. Here in Whitianga I've heard them referred to as deck shoes, as in deck of the boats that so many people here own.

We just called them sneakers at the time, Lorna. They were white canvas lace-ups with a bit of rubber across the toe area and we used to paint them with whitening (like liquid paint for shoes) to keep them white. Same as these plimsolls [www.bibico.co.uk]

Similar to the whitening stuff we used [www.britishcornershop.co.uk]

Deck shoes are also called boat shoes.

Sandshoes - showing my age.
Re dabs Lorna my Bristolian husband still calls them daps.

"Tennis shoes" is what we knew them as - the canvas lace-ups with a bit of rubber across the toe area and kept white by painting with white liquid (as referred to by both Lorna and J1). Maybe my parents only used them for playing tennis, hence the name 'tennis shoes' in my family's household?
Regards,
Dawn.

Oh Dawn, you're right! Tennis shoes was what we called them too and then it morphed into sneakers by the time I was a teenager.

Tennis shoes here, too. I wore them when playing tennis. It was all we had, many many, many years ago.

I think its good that a supermarket is making a start on reducing plastic. A journey begins with the first step.

Yes, and tennis shoes had no plastic on them, except for maybe the shoelace aglet but even that back then was probably more likely to be metal. Some shoes these days are made entirely of plastic....

One of the things I dislike about the bottling of NZ water for overseas markets (as on the news again tonight) is the enormous volume of plastic used to bottle water.. I don't buy takeaway coffees and I absolutely avoid buying bottled water. Soft drinks don't exist in our house so this saves the use of all that plastic for them.

If you buy Ecostore products, they have a refill option so you can avoid buying another plastic container. For instance, in Auckland, you can refill your Ecostore containers at more than 14 places [www.ecostore.co.nz]
.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2018 12:00AM by J1.

In our Bin Inn, not only do you buy just what you need from the bins, but you get a 5% discount if you bring your own containers. Our local fish shop now wraps fish in paper rather than putting it in plastic bags. At our Saturday market some suppliers are no longer pre-packing produce in plastic bags, and many have small re-usable mesh bags on hand for people to buy for a few dollars. I've also read that New World is trialling 'naked produce' stands in some of their supermarkets, where no vegetables or fruit are wrapped in plastic. It seems that businesses are taking the initiative that the government should be taking!

I don't buy any vegetables offered in plastic. When it comes to things like brussels sprouts, grapes, etc that require packaging, I use the brown paper bags supplied for mushrooms. The paper bags come in handy at home for all sorts of things. When egging and crumbing things like fish, I put the flour in one and the breadcrumbs in another. Put the item in the bag with a bit flour, shake it all about, then swish it through the beaten egg, then into a second bag containing breadcrumbs. The same for flouring meat before frying for a casserole, etc. Or the bags are very good at draining fried food on before serving, especially if you crumple them slighty. I also use them beside my stove as a place to put the spoon, fish slice or whatever utensil I am using while cooking. Cleanup is simple, scrunch up the paper bag and throw it away.

I think the excess packaging in some parts of the supermarket could be reduced. eg tomatoes/kiwifruit/strawberries in punnets

I would also like to see reduced packaging behind the scenes - we all know what you have to deal with when ordering online. I also know there are tradeoffs with product quality.

Cheese Lover - I noticed just this week that Beekist tomatoes have changed the packing of their cherry tomato range to a cardboard punnet with only a small clear plastic film window on top. An improvement on the plastic clamshells for sure.

I see they're even making a thing of it on the front of their webpage.

[beekist.co.nz]

I took my Ecostore dishwash liquid 1 litre container to a refill station last week and refilled it for $5. Countdown's current price for a new one is $7.50, so it was a saving of $2.50 on one item!

I absolutely agree with you! Plastic is better to replace with wood. The wood is durable and long lasting. My husband also started working in this area and I know what I'm talking about. There are useful articles on mytoptools , where the author teaches woodworking by example.

Do you remember when disposable plastic bags first came in and replaced the large brown paper bags? The rational was that we were saving the planet by saving trees which were being cut down by the rainforest lot to make cardboard and paper packaging. Still I would much prefer to go back to paper and glass, its unbelievable the amount of plastic bottles you see discarded all over the place as well. We need something that can truly be recycled.

I remember the brown paper bags of course. We have just got back from Vietnam and Cambodia and we were astounded at the plastic use over there, they use it for EVERYTHING., and the plastic throw away bottles of water sold is mind blowing! I always take my own bag to the supermarket these days, in fact I always have one folded inside my handbag. NZ supermarkets should go back to the paper bags in my opinion. Some things about banning single use plastic bags don't sit at all well with me....Bread, what is our bread going to come in? Meat? Deli products? There is so much plastic in this world/country....shampoo's, cosmetics etc etc most are packaged in plastic. We have all got to seriously think about this issue....this planet is in serious trouble with pollution now.

There was an interesting thing about recycling tyres on the TV the other day, which could be extended to plastics [www.stuff.co.nz]