Shoppers Should Take Responsibility

Cr Celia Wade-Brown urges Wellington supermarkets to re-think their plastic bag ideas and says a month is not long enough for behavioural change to take effect.

Other supermarket operators should feel bad for being free-loaders, undermining the New World and Four Square initiative, and not taking their share of responsibility.

She says "It's easy for people to avoid the modest charge - just take a bag or six with you! How extraordinary that many people in the Lower North Island choose to travel further to different stores just because they are being asked to take some responsibility for reducing waste!"

"I call on Wellington residents to reduce waste by taking their own bags, buying products with minimal packaging, re-using or recycling what they can to reduce the amount of plastic that heads into our ocean. It's not "clean and green" nor "100% Pure"  when you see plastic bags in the Taputeranga Marine Reserve or littering our beaches, parks and streets.

It is estimated that 10 percent of the world’s plastic waste finds its way into the sea and slowly but surely most of it ends up in the Pacific Ocean. Sea currents transport the waste into ocean “dead zones”, large areas of water that are slow moving circular currents which trap debris into one large constantly moving mass of plastic. Seabirds and other animals eat the plastic and can starve.

Celia also urges the Waste Advisory Board to give the Waste Minimisation Act some meaning and reduce packaging waste. The Waste Minimisation Act enables New Zealanders to set a fair playing field for waste reduction. Containers - bags, bottles and other packaging - should an early focus for reduction. The Ministry for the Environment and the Waste Advisory Board are currently choosing which products to give priority to.

Finally, the Council Environment Portfolio Leader says "If you need a bag to package up your weekly recycling, one or two a week is a lot less than most people take for their groceries now!  We do need to bag our loose lightweight recyclables or they will blow into stormwater grates, reserves or the sea! Those bags are then recycled too. Keeping our green recycling bins is what the public wanted but it is a windy city!"
Cr Celia Wade-Brown

Wellington City Councillor
Environment Portfolio Leader

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