Plastic bag waste: how can consumers manage it?
- PORT LINCOLN WASTE WATCH
- Opinion: Waste Watch has come to an end, or has it?
- Reusable coffee cups on the rise
- Compostable takeaway containers
- Cost too high for recycling pick up in the Lower EP
- Rise in Port Lincoln household recycling
- What is e-waste recycling?
- Colourful arts and crafts with waste
- Vision to have no bins at schools
- Join Plastic Free July with Adventure Bay Charters
- Recycle, reduce, reuse and more
South Australia has had a plastic bag ban for eight years now but there is always more people can do to minimise their use of plastic.
Eyre Imports owner Andrea Thomas has never had a plastic bag in her shop since she opened in 2003 and had some advice on how to minimise household plastic.
She said the best advice she could give to reduce plastic use was to start in the pantry.
“Start reusing more, start buying more, start planning more and start using more.”
She said people needed to make more use of old jars in their pantries, which could be used for storing leftover food or when buying food in bulk that may not require plastic packaging, such as nuts, powders and spices.
Major supermarkets offer their own reusable eco bags and Ms Thomas said they were a great alternative to plastic bags but it left the question of what to do with other plastics found in the shopping trolley.
Do you throw out your soft plastics? Did you know there is a solution to keep them out of landfill?
Coles has a solution – with REDcycle bins and there is one located in Port Lincoln.
“We can take some plastics for anyone who wants to recycle with us,” Port Lincoln Coles store support manager Sue Dowding said.
If it is soft plastic and can be scrunched into a ball then it can be recycled in a Coles REDcycle bin.
This means bread bags, biscuit wrappers, toilet paper packaging, rice and pasta packets, frozen food bags, confectionery bags, plastic bags, old green bags, cereal box liners and more can all be recycled.
“They use (the soft plastics) to make school seats, planter pots, and they make hard plastic items with it,” Ms Dowding said.