Supermarket giant Woolworths says it is committed to phasing in plastic bags across all of its fresh fruit and vegetables over the next two years, in a move it says is important for the environment – of its stores.
“Right now you can still walk into a Woolworths and see a parsnip or a pear just lying there, loose. It’s confronting,” a spokesperson for the company said. “By the end of the year that will be reassuringly wrapped in a single-use plastic container that’s sturdy enough to last the next three to four thousand years”.
The move comes as Woolworths phases out single-use shopping bags, which it has replaced with larger reusable bags. “The beauty of these new larger white bags is that you can fit six pre-wrapped bags of lettuce and a three-pack tube of apples into the one shopping bag, whereas before you could only fit half that”.
Rival Coles says it will consider all available options before introducing an identical plastic bag strategy next week.
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With additional reporting from Brett Naseby
