Green plan to tax plastic shopping bags

By ANNE BESTON

The Green Party wants shoppers to pay a levy of up to 25c on each plastic shopping bag they use.

About 3.2 million bags are used every day. The Greens say they harm the environment and clutter landfills and want legislation to cut their use.

Green MP Mike Ward said his bill, which will take its chances with other private members' bills in Parliament's ballot system, would mean no more free plastic bags.

He had not decided how much the levy might be, but 25c a bag would be "a maximum". Ireland had reduced its plastic bag use by 90 per cent by slapping a similar levy on each bag.

"You don't have to charge people very much before they try and avoid paying it."

His bill was announced in time for today's World Environment Day, as was another initiative, the Great Plastic Bag Mail-In campaign, which aims to flood Environment Minister Marian Hobbs' office with so many plastic bags she will back a levy.

Campaign spokeswoman Cath Knight wants shoppers to post unwanted plastic bags to the minister for three months.

"We believe the minister needs to take a more active role in reducing plastic bag waste."

But Foodstuffs Auckland managing director Tony Carter said a levy would be passed to consumers and he believed the plastic bag problem was overstated - "They are a really small part of the waste stream."

Progressive Enterprises, New Zealand's other big supermarket chain, agreed.

Chief operating officer Richard Umbers said: "Perhaps a better way of approaching it is to look at using alternative bags such as reusable bags and things like our 'Pack 7' scheme, which encourages people to limit the number of bags they use without an increase in cost."

Progressive now packs seven items in each bag instead of the previous average of 3.8.