On Wed April 4 the Mullumbimby Woolworths will remove plastic bags from their registers for good. In 2017, after Qld & WA announced that they would be joining the ACT, NT, SA & Tas in passing legislation to stop shops supplying lightweight plastic bags, both Coles and Woolworths committed to extending the removal of these bags voluntarily to their operations in NSW & Vic. The date for this nationwide change is July 1 but the Mullum Woolworths was one of a handful of trial stores that has been given the green light to introduce the change early.
The reason Mullum Cares is organising a Community Celebration on Sat April 7 out front of Woolies is to shine a bright light on the decision by store manager, Wayne McInnerney, to support his customers by providing boxes as a back up for when they forget to BYO bags rather than the Australia wide default back up option of a thicker plastic bag for 15c. Currently the ACT and Tas governments are investigating the results of their bag bans as the prevalence of the supply of these 15c thicker bags has raised serious concerns about the real environmental benefit of the bans. In Mullumbimby we believe that a plastic carry bag ban should result in no plastic carry bags being allowed to be supplied either for profit or for free.
There are still a few shops in Mullum who have stated they will continue to supply free plastic bags but they usually have plastic bag free competitors so we suggest you support the traders who support the critical need to reduce our use of problem plastics:)
