Mayor Congratulates Warehouse

Waitakere is keen to wipe out the environmental pollution of plastic shopping bags.
Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey, who is leading a campaign to massively reduce plastic bags in his City, congratulates The Warehouse chain on its initiative.

The warehouse plans to charge 10cents per plastic shopping bag at its stores, with proceeds going to local community projects. The aim is to reduce the amount of bags customers use.

Mayor Harvey last week hosted a forum, attended by around 50 retailers, which unanimously agreed to work to reduce consumption of plastic shopping bags and eventually eliminate their use all together.

“Plastic bags are an environmental disaster and that is being recognised around the world in places like the UK, Australia and even India,” Mayor Harvey says. “Now the idea is taking off here and to have one of the country’s largest retail chains taking the lead is just fantastic.”

Among those in attendance at the Waitakere forum were large companies Progressive Enterprises, Foodstuffs, Gull, and Westfield as well as local business operators and business associations.

"This has to be a partnership with business," said Mayor Harvey.

He says many retailers are already doing their bit to reduce their plastic bag use, from simply asking customers to make the choice about whether or not they want a plastic bag to being part of a national accord to reduce plastic bag usage and providing more environmentally-friendly alternatives.

”And a charge of, say, 10 cents per bag will certainly make shoppers think twice.”

It is estimated that New Zealanders consume around 1 billion plastic shopping bags every year, and that over 40,000 plastic check-out bags are dumped in New Zealand landfills every hour. “The many millions more end up clogging our streams and harbours, killing wildlife, or simply blowing around our streets,” Mayor Harvey says.

He adds that simply using a cloth bag or some other alternative can save at least six plastic bags a week.

ENDS

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