Binning the bag ban gives small business a fair go

A NSW Labor bill to ban lightweight plastic bags was blocked in the NSW lower house on Thursday after passing in the upper house.

Good. Not only is this excellent news for consumers who enjoy the convenience of free lightweight bags, but it is also welcome relief for hardworking small businesses and independent grocers trying to challenge the corporate oligopoly of big supermarket chains that don’t like competition.

Reinforced plastic bags are now the norm at Woolworths where they cost 15 cents and Coles where they’re given away for free. Although chains have decided to phase out lightweight bags of their own volition, supposedly to save the planet, it was only a matter of time before calls to make the policy mandatory for all supermarkets and grocers would be made. Competitor chain Harris Farm Markets last year called for the Berejiklian government to ban lightweight bags statewide.

Big chains have the resources and the economies of scale to mass-produce and cheaply sell or give away reinforced plastic bags. But forcing smaller players to adopt the model would eat into their profit margins or undermine their ability to compete against their rivals. They are also less equipped to deal with the commercial fallout of forcing customers to buy reinforced bags since customers typically duck in for goods or produce they can’t find at the major supermarket where they regularly shop or do a majority of their shopping. They are less likely to do so if they don’t have the convenience of free, lightweight bags.

This works out well for the big chains. If this were really about saving the environment, and not a PR or commercial exercise, then we wouldn’t be seeing headlines about chains like Woolworths advertising their 15 cent reinforced bags while selling fruit in plastic packaging or engaging in plastic toy giveaways.

More competition from smaller players in the supermarket sector is also good for the environment. Produce suppliers contracted by big chains report that they’re often forced to destroy more produce than they farm since the chains’ orders can vary significantly yet they remain under contract to service the largest orders possible.

Moreover, lightweight plastic bag bans are a questionable means of environmental stewardship. A U.S. study from Reason Foundation found that these bags account for less than 1% of all visible litter, 0.4% of municipal solid waste, and are not a major cause of blocked public drains. Bag bans did not reduce the cost of waste disposal or the amount of litter generated. When they were banned in San Francisco, litter levels actually rose.

Reinforced bags are many times heavier than lightweight ones and take more energy, water and resources to produce. It’s also a myth that they’re better than lightweight bags since the latter aren’t reusable. Most NSW families, including this writer’s, have a ‘bag of bags’ at home containing lightweight kept handy for reuse. Conversely, the tendency of many customers to discard or forget to bring their reinforced bags to the store means that a mandatory switch to these bags could actually increase litter, resource consumption and waste management costs.

They’re also a hygiene issue. California Department of Public Health warns that bacteria tend to grow in reinforced bags during warmer months and checkout staff at large Australian supermarkets have reportedly found mice, cockroaches, needles, razor blades, dentures and dirty nappies in reinforced bags.

The only people who benefit from lightweight bag bans are big chains who make tidy profits off making customers buy alternatives. These virtue-signaling, anti-small business and anti-consumer proposals belong in the bin.

Satya Marar is the Director of Policy at the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance.

This article was originally published in the Daily Telegraph on 18 October 2019.