this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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How will the July 1st plastic bag ban affect you? (lemmy.nz)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I hear that plastic bags are soon to be banned? How will that affect you? I've already thought about rubbish bags and bin liners and I don't know what the alternative will be yet. If they replace plastic rubber bags with those thick paper ones what is to stop people hiding a plastic bag inside of it? How will it be policed? Will the border customs staff be seizing imported plastic bags at the border?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

We don't buy plastic bags. We try to recycle as much as we can, including collecting soft plastics, but we first try to reduce the amount we produce.

I’ve already thought about rubbish bags and bin liners and I don’t know what the alternative will be yet.

Personally we just don't use a bin liner. The bin itself is plastic and easily washed, but doesn't need washing that often.

How will it be policed? Will the border customs staff be seizing imported plastic bags at the border?

I can't even find anything about bin liners or other plastic bags being banned from 1 July, only single use produce bags, plastic disposable cutlery/plates, plastic fruit stickers, and a restriction on who can buy plastic straws.

Can you point to something that says plastic rubbish bags are banned?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

We dont use bun liners either. The rubnish bin is easy to wash if needed, but that is rare since all the messy stuff goes out to the compost or into waste disposer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where we are, we have to use the council's prepaid plastic bags. It pisses me off - I wish they'd introduce stickers as another option. They don't even make good bin liners because they're too weak. But we barely use them now because we recycle or compost the vast majority of our stuff. Especially now that Tetrapak's sorted out a recycling solution in NZ. Also, there's no rubbish collection here, which adds a pretty big incentive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Our council has prepaid plastic bags. You can't get a private company wheelie bin? Some have fortnightly collection, which is what we use.

It's great you've managed to get your rubbish down so much! I swear we would have 1/4 of the rubbish if we didn't have kids.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah, we live way out in the wops. We don't get any services out here at all. We have to drop the bags and recycling off at a collection point. We do try to cut down where we can.

Meanwhile, most people out here still burn their rubbish, plastic and all. The farmers burn huge piles of plastic silage wrap, filling the valley with the sweet aroma of burnt polyethylene.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah I see. That sucks, I wonder is burning plastic silage wrap is counted when they measure the CO2 output of NZ farms.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't complain. The air is usually so clean out here.

It probably doesn't amount to much CO~2~ in the scheme of a farm, but it's releasing all kinds of toxins into the environment. I never thought about all the plastic they go through with silage until I moved into the country. I certainly didn't know it was usually burned. They were trialling a recycling scheme for it a few years ago and the farmers seemed pretty keen. They got about 20 tonnes of wrap in two days at two drop-off sites. It's really bulky so it would've taken a lot of effort on the farmers' part to load and cart it in. It seems like they stopped that though. Farmers can pay to have companies come and take it away for recycling, but it doesn't seem like many are keen on that. At least not around here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's probably one of those things we need government intervention to have recycling paid for up front, like has been suggested for TVs. Then you can make collection and recycling free, to encourage it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just had a look. 85% of it was being recycled last year. So it's just that our neighbours are the useless ones. And the government's going to start requiring that all farm plastics are covered by a stewardship scheme to recycle them.

Still, it seems like a government program could be so much more efficient than the current system of calling someone to have them come and pick it up from the middle of nowhere then take it back. You could have one rubbish truck with a compactor move to a different area every day and pick it up everyone's wrap in one go.

Long-term we need something better than plastic for silage wrap. People have been working on it but no one can do it at scale yet. When that happens, we need to make sure that's cheaper/easier than the plastic stuff.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh that's good to see!

Long-term we need something better than plastic for silage wrap.

The problem is you need something that will not break down. Maybe the solution is to eeplace silage rather than the wrapping. Perhaps you use something that only breaks down in commercial composting, but silage can get very warm so that still may not be enough to prevent it breaking down in the paddock or shed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Some Canadian researchers have actually made something out of corn proteins that they say works. They just don't know how to scale up production. No idea how it can be both biodegradable and withstand the fermentation process and outdoor conditions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That's cool! I guess you need something that takes a medium time to break down, but when it does, it breaks down to organics rather than microplastics.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aussie here: if it turns out anything like ours, look forward to shitty cardboard/paper bags at the supermarkets that cost 15c, and increase in price every 12 months. It’s a delicious little money maker for them.

Meanwhile, the Chinese grocer just got all their plastic bags with the words “reusable bag” printed on them instead.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We've had plastic supermarket bags phased out for quite some time now. As far as I can tell, the only plastic bags being phased out on 1 July are plastic produce bags at supermarkets. We just take reusable ones, not the shitty plastic reusable ones but the canvas-ish ones that let you put 12L of milk in them without an issue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

We already have gone low-plastic. Soft plastics get collected separately to everything else and dropped off with soft-plastic recycling. For our bins we line the landfill bin with a thick paper shopping bag and use a separate container for organic waste.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've not had great success with the biodegradable rubbish bags. They just disintegrate and break when I take the full bag out the kitchen bin, spewing rubbish onto the floor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I've found they disintegrate in the presence of liquids - if you don't put in food waste (which you can put into a compost bin anyway), they work pretty well!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Perth went through those a couple of years ago.

For me, I always forget to take a bag, and as a result am forced into the grocery juggle to take the stuff. I then grab a washing basket when I get home to take them inside.

I made it a personal goal to not buy bags if I forget, I reckon in the years it has come in I have purchased 5 times.

I have bought a folding car boot organiser, and use that as a bag. I put it near the door to remember to take it back to the car, where it now.lives. it means I can do the manly thing to only ever do one trip from the car to inside.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We've had plastic supermarket bags phased out for quite some time now. As far as I can tell, the only plastic bags being phased out on 1 July are plastic produce bags at supermarkets.

Personally we have some little reusable bags that live in the car, just in case. But I prefer the big heavy duty canvas-like bags so you can carry all the groceries inside at once, so long as you can carry 30KG.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

i like the blue Ikea bags personally.

we could cross post this to c/fitness

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It won't effect me at all. I have plenty of bags.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I honestly thought it was already in place. So no new changes for us here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As far as I can tell, the only plastic bag ban that comes into effect on 1 July is the ban on plastic produce bags at the supermarket.

In addition, there's a ban on plastic disposable plates/cutlery, plastic fruit stickers, and a restriction on who can buy plastic straws as described here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh that makes sense, the supermarkets I go to removed them ages ago. We have reusable cotton bags we use for supermarket items when they are needed.

I'm super glad to hear about the plastic stickers. I vaguely remember hearing about that before. It's a great change.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm happy about the stickers too! As I remember it, there was some time needed to come up with an alternative which is why it's happening now and not a few years back when other stuff was being banned.

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