Merran and Karam Brockie-David were in pristine jungle in Cambodia, walking to a sparkling beach, when they saw the jarring sight that helped change their lives in New Zealand: plastic straws and plastic bags.
"We thought we'd help clean the place up and pick them up but, oh my God, there were lots more – and then lots more, thousands and thousands of them…everywhere, in this beautiful place," says Merran.
They disposed of what they could and made their way to the beach to relax amid Cambodia's serene beauty. They posed for photographs but, again, plastic interfered: "As we tried to take pictures of each other, we found we had to wait until the next plastic bag had passed by in the water behind us…and then the next one and the next one."
The Brockie-Davids are customers at Countdown in Birkenhead and are delighted to hear the massive supermarket chain is phasing out single-use plastic bags from their checkouts and online shopping by the end of this year – a move that will see 350 million plastic carrier bags a year removed from our waste and the environment.
It's the first real move from corporate New Zealand directly aimed at changing consumer behaviour (Countdown customers make 2.8m trips to the supermarket every week) to address the national and global plastic bag problem.
Countdown's General Manager Corporate Affairs, Kiri Hannifin, says: "We know changing people's behaviour is the hardest thing to do – and that's why we are starting this now and telling people to bring their own bags to the stores [10 Countdown stores are going single-use plastic bag-free on May 21]."
While reusable bags are sold at Countdown for $1, Hannifin says: "People should know they can bring their own bags now – they don't have to wait for the official changeover. Bring a bucket, a pillowcase, whatever…we will pack it for you."
Plastic bag pollution is an issue the Brockie-Davids first noticed in London and then in Asia earlier this year, on their return from three years: "Asia is beautiful – but it was horrendous for plastic bags and plastic waste," she says, "and New Zealand could go the same way. We think we are a clean and green country and that we recycle – but we are really just scratching the surface."
The Asian experience accelerated the couple's lifestyle change and disengagement from plastics. They now use steel straws if straws are required; they already use Countdown's reusable shopping bags; they have reduced their household rubbish by at least 50 per cent by composting and using biodegradable rubbish bag – while their recycling has more than doubled.
They use bamboo toothbrushes and non-plastic dental floss and cotton wool buds; they buy virtually no plastic bottles (for everything from water to nail polish remover) and they use a shampoo bar rather than a product in a plastic bottle.
"We have to change our habits if we're going to beat the problem, so it's great that Countdown are removing so many millions of bags from circulation."
Circulation is hardly the word. Around the globe, people use plastic bags once and throw them away. Some estimates say 500 billion bags are used each year; others (like the Earth Policy Institute), suggest the true figure is much bigger – a trillion.
New Zealanders use 1.6bn plastic bags a year, according to Greenpeace (with some estimates allocating 700m from supermarkets). Globally, only nine per cent of the millions of tonnes of plastics produced has been recycled.
The vast majority finds its way into landfills, rivers and oceans or pollute the landscape. They sometimes take hundreds of years to biodegrade and, when they do, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces. The bags can have a devastating effect on wildlife and there is evidence tiny micro-plastics are coming back into the human food chain after being consumed by fish, for example.
Hannifin says Countdown took the decision to stop using the bags after customer sentiment showed 83 per cent supported the idea of phasing out single-use plastic carrier bags.
"But it's not just that – customers these days are demanding businesses help protect the environment; that's fine with us because that is an intrinsic part of Kiwi daily life and it's absolutely the right thing to do."
To begin the process, the company has selected 10 stores to go plastic bag-free from May 21: Dargaville, Aviemore Drive, Auckland; Roselands, Auckland; Northwest, Auckland; Grey Lynn, Auckland; Johnsonville Mall, Wellington; Victoria Ave, Whanganui; Redwoodtown, Blenheim ; Ferrymead, Christchurch; and Gisborne.
By the end of this year, all Countdown stores will be free of single-use plastic carrier bags at checkout and in online shopping.
However, there is still work to do. Hannifin says while single-use plastic bags are a part of the global plastics waste problem "for Countdown, addressing this issue is just a start. We plan to go through all plastic in our stores with a view to reducing plastic in our business in any way we can.
"It's already happening – we have recently taken plastic [wrapping] off our bananas and that has taken 158 tonnes of plastic a year out of the waste stream.
"Since we announced our commitment last year, customers have reduced their plastic bag use by just over 16 per cent. There is momentum for change – people get it; they know why this is so important."