PACKAGING COUNCIL (SECRETARIAT)

The retailers have an Accord target to reduce plastic shopping bag consumption by 20% by June 2009. On Tuesday 26th July 2007, Foodstuffs and Progressive Enterprises launched a joint campaign to Make a Difference to the environment by reducing the number of plastic bags used at their checkouts.

The launch was addressed by the Minister for the Environment, Hon David Benson-Pope at an event in Wellington hosted by the New Zealand Retailers Association. The new logo Make a Difference will be rolled out to 646 supermarkets and will remind shoppers from the time they pick up their shopping trolley through to when they check out that they can choose whether to take a plastic bag.

The campaign is supported by research by AC Neilson who conducted detailed market research on behalf of the supermarkets and The Warehouse into people's attitudes. One thousand typical shoppers were asked to build a picture of the current use and reuse of plastic bags and to identify what it will take to get people to use alternatives such as eco-bags:

• Whilst over half (54%) of respondents consider themselves to be "green consumers", two thirds will nevertheless always accept free plastic bags when at the supermarket.
• Two thirds (66%) think plastic bags are useful but almost the same number (60%) consider them to be harmful to the environment
• Only one third of New Zealanders currently use Eco Bags. The key barriers to use include remembering to take them and the cost of purchasing them.
• Women (42%) are almost twice as likely to use Eco-bags than men (24%)
• South Islanders (24%) are less likely to use Eco-bags than other regions overall (33%)

Click here to download a summary of the AC Neilson Research

Click here to view the media release.

FOODSTUFFS (NZ) LTD

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: The Foodstuffs companies are committed to minimising the negative environmental impacts of their business activities. As well as complying with all legislative and regulatory requirements, there is an organisation-wide focus on energy efficiency and waste reduction which begins at head office level and runs through the warehousing and transport operations to the retail end of the business. PLASTIC BAGS: PAK'nSAVE stores provide grocery cartons for re-use as carry-home containers and, in the North Island, charge for plastic shopping bags. Calico bags or other non-plastic alternatives are offered for sale in most stores and a re-usable bag made of fully recyclable Polypropylene has been introduced under our Pam’s house-brand. Aside from this, customers are welcome to bring their own carry-bags from home. Checkout staff are trained to ask customers whether they require carry-bags, and to pack these efficiently to minimise the number of bags dispensed. More...

PROGRESSIVE ENTERPRISES LTD

	New Zealanders throw away 3.6 million tonnes of rubbish every year. If we were to measure this in 9 tonne buses it would equate to 400,000 buses of rubbish - that's more than 1000 buses every day. Around 65 percent of our "rubbish" could be recycled or composted instead, here at Progressive we are currently running many initiatives to help the environment and are committed to reducing waste throughout our business, here are a few of them: Pack 7 - We aim to pack 7 items per bag! Pack 7 encourages our checkout team to pack seven items into a plastic bag. More..

THE WAREHOUSE LTD

The Warehouse is a signatory to The New Zealand Packaging Accord which came into affect on August 10th 2004. One specific goal for retailers within the Accord is to progressively reduce the volume of shopping bags we distribute by a minimum of 20% by 2008. Further to this we have been actively marketing reusable bags and offering consumers a 20 cent rebate if they make use of this bag when making a purchase at the Warehouse. In addition we have increased the recycled content of our standard plastic bag to 50%. Where practicable we encourage customers not to take a bag and mark their purchase with sold tape for security purposes instead.

PACKAGING DESIGN: The Warehouse Ltd is a signatory to the New Zealand Packaging Accord 2004. Brand Owners and Retailers including The Warehouse have been involved in the development of the Accord and have made a public commitment to the principles of the Accord and to the specific provisions within the Brand Owner and Retailer section of the Accord. This means that we will need to partner with our suppliers to align the specification and design of packaging to the Accord. Click to view the Warehouse Packaging Guide.

PACKAGING COUNCIL OF NEW ZEALAND
ACTING AS THE NZ PACKAGING ACCORD SECRETARIAT
77 Greenmount Drive, East Tamaki, Manukau
PO Box 58899, Greenmount, Auckland
PHONE: 09 271 4044, FAX: 09 271 4041