Woolworths begins trial to remove plastic carrier bags

South African retailer Woolworths has begun a trial to remove plastic barrier bags from its stores.

The trial kicked off on Monday, 8 April in four Western Cape stores, namely Table Bay Mall, Waterstone Village, Plattekloof Village and Palmyra Junction.

From next Monday, a further eight stores will be added to the trial.

Those are N1 City Mall, Village Square, Canal Walk and Stellenbosch Square in the Western Cape, and Hazeldene Square, Harvest Place, Benmore Gardens and Maroun Square in Gauteng.

According to the Bizcommunity website, the trial will last eight weeks.

COULD LEAD TO THE REMOVAL OF 11 MILLION PLASTIC BARRIER BAGS

“At Woolies, we have a vision of zero packaging waste to landfill and have publicly committed to the removal of unnecessary and problematic plastics from our value chain,” says Feroz Koor, group head of sustainability.

“To deliver on our commitment, we have already removed plastic straws, plastic cutlery, plastic cotton bud sticks, plastic lollipop sticks, microbeads, and single-use shopping bags from all our stores. The barrier bag is the last problematic plastic on the SA Plastics Pact list that we need to remove and we are ready to work closely with our customers to eliminate it from our stores,” Koor added.

Although plastic barrier bags are technically recyclable, they are deemed problematic as they are too thin to be viable for recyclers to recycle and are often contaminated with food or waste products so either end up littering our communities, rivers and oceans or going to landfill.

If Woolworths goes ahead and does remove all plastic barrier bags from all stores, an estimated 11 million plastic bags would no longer potentially pollute our environment, waterways and oceans.

Woolworths ditched plastic bags in all stores in October 2022.

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