Enthusiastic About Ditching Plastic

According to Clean Up Australia, we burn through 784,000 barrels of oil, to produce the 3.76 billion plastic bags that Australians use each year. Sadly, we can pile 'damaging greenhouse gas emissions' on top of all the other environmental reasons why plastic bags are no good.

Such as causing landfill, being made from polluting petrochemicals and being deadly to our wildlife. So I was surprised when I found this on the Woolworths website:

"Woolworths Limited is conscious of its environmental footprint and is taking steps to reduce it."

and:

"Woolworths Limited are actively pursuing a reduction in plastic bags and are a member of a group that includes Australia's largest retailers."

Over at the Coles website:

"Coles Cares for Landcare Australia... To help reduce the 7 billion plastic check-out bags that Australians use every year, Coles has joined forces with Landcare Australia to help set a new industry benchmark in responsible packaging. Landcare Australia receives funding from Coles out of the ‘Go Green Environment fund’. Landcare utilises these funds to support a wide variety of environmental projects."

Confusion over the number of bags aside... can you really consider yourself a good corporate citizen by saying you care about your carbon footprint or by giving money to environmental organisations? Even when, at the same time, you are lobbying through the Australian Retailers Association to keep plastic bags?

Today the Environment Minister he wants to ban plastic bags within 12 months. According to The Age the move has been applauded by green groups, but retailers — including major supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths — remain opposed a ban.

In addition to our 'No Animal Testing' policy, 'Protecting our Planet' is a core The Body Shop value that we take very seriously. If other retailers want to do more than just green wash the environmental issue they have to start doing more than talking the talk.

The Body Shop Australia is proud to have been 100% plastic bag free in all our stores since 1999.

We give our customers Australian made paper bags that use 50% recycled paper which includes up to 50% post-consumer waste. We're not perfect. In some countries around the world we're still trying to let go of our dependency on plastic bags, but we're trying. This is in addition to some other environmental achievements like:

• not using PVC in our packaging
• most of our bottles containing 30% recycled content (which allows us to save more than 10 million virgin bottles a year)
• Less than 3% of our products are packaged in separate cartons
• When legislation requires us to have secondary packaging we use cardboard made from recycled or sustainable forest materials.

We can all do something to reduce our environmental impact - to preserve our planet for future generations. We applaud the Minister for his intention to ban plastic bags and we strongly encourage other retailers to eradicate their usage of plastic bags. We know it's hard to balance economic with social and environmental imperatives but you have to start trying - somehow.

As consumers we can help by always re-using boxes or bags. Don't get lazy about ditching the plastic - get enthusiastic!

Adam Valvasori - Not wrapped in plastic