REDcycle was never about recycling.
The "return-to-store" soft plastics program was never about recycling.
Those thick, soft plastic bags were never about "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle".
Calling plastic bags "multi-use" was a lie intended to transfer the responsibility of dealing with plastic to customers.
It was about telling customers they could continue using plastic bags. Supermarkets didn't want to change how they do things, and they didn't want to deal with the marginally increased cost of using paper bags. That's it.
The government should be suing supermarkets into the dirt for their years of fraud, malpractice, and environmental vandalism.
In the meantime, the fix is far more straightforward than the naysayers claim:
Do not let retailers "self-regulate" use of plastics.
Our supermarkets have been caught price gouging again. It's impossible to export top-grade locally-produced food all the way to Japan and for it to end-up far cheaper. The government needs to step-in to stop this price gouging.
The government also needs to give back power to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. After years of undermining and by the successive RWNJ governments and nepotistic placements of their own pro-big-business colleagues high-up in the ACCC, the ACCC has been rendered toothless. We need the ACCC to be an independent umpire again.
It's kinda shocking how fast self checkout at Coles and Woolworths went from annoying but arguably the fastest way out of the store to a major time sink and source of aggravation as whatever junk they've bought to monitor the checkouts thinks you've stolen or mis-scanned something. #coles#woolworths
The French parliament has passed legislation that will enable the Government to set a floor price for farmers products, which is reviewable every four months.
The change will guarantee a minimum rate of return for French farmers.
It seems to me that if we are ever going to break the monopoly power of #Woolworths and #Coles in #Australia, then this is the sort of forward thinking approach needed by the #Albanese Government.
They would, of course, just have to locate their collective back bone again (last seen when they changed the Stage 3 tax cuts, but misplaced soon afterwards) and stop being a largely pointless waste of space.
Finally, the mainstream media has discovered the scam.
A few months ago, I wrote about supermarkets greenwashing by offering non-existent recycling programmes: https://rants.au/@BinChicken/111378843288140672
This scam is an excuse for supermarkets and food companies not to change their packaging and a feel-good exercise for customers who don't care about their effect on the environment as consumers.
wow... had stopped using #coles for the past week or so, but back in today and the lack of fresh veg, excessive 'security' on the self checkouts including gates that dont open even if you've paid makes the whole event unpleasant. Will train myself to go IGA instead for canned goods, hit the farmers market (order on line) for fresh fruit and veg, and use the bulk foods shop for dry foods. The mega corp can suck it.
Nice bit of greenwashing bullshit in there on your plastic packaging, Woolies!
The recycling logo fails to include the number to designate the type of plastic. Most local councils only accept some types of plastics, and recycling centres need to know the type of plastic. Without that number, nobody has a chance.
Oh, Woolies wants you to return the bag to the supermarket, and they'll recycle it for you? But, if you follow the link to https://www.woolworths.com.au/recycling, Woolies says they don't accept plastic bags for recycling. The scheme is on hold because their recycling partner, Planet Ark, was found to be full of shit. It's an elaborate lie designed to make the customer believe Woolies cares about recycling.
Coles is in on it too. In June 2023, Coles announced a three-year partnership with Planet Ark. Presumably, this is to produce some meaningless PR to pretend they care about the environment. slow clap
You may remember Planet Ark from their previous environment fraud supermarket scams:
15-cent plastic bags that were advertised as "green" because you were supposed to reuse them, but were not in fact green because nobody could use them more than once, and they were made of heavyweight plastic that's even worse than the previous type of plastic bag.
Plastic bag recycling drop-off points at supermarkets that resulted in scores of Planet Ark warehouses around the nation packed to the rafters with plastic bags that never got recycled.
Supermarket shopping.
Got the goods to the selfserve checkout. 🤔
Scanned the big bag of toilet paper.
On to the theft-prevention scales.
Wasn't going to be enough room for the rest of the grocercies, so moved the bag off the scales.
Oh no, "Return the item to the scales".🐒
Return, wait, try removal again.
Oh no, "Return the item to the scales".
Carefully unpack my bags of groceries onto scanner and shelf and walk out.
Every time I hear someone talk about how #capitalism can solve problems, all I can think about is "fun size" candy. And how it used to be about a 3rd of a full size chocolate bar, and now it's close to half that. It's like a speck of candy wrapped in a ton of plastic.
And it's because they don't have to put the number of grams on the individual packages, so candy companies shrink them year after year.
A fun size Whoppers used be a little bag of them. Like 6-10. Now it's 2. 2 Whoppers. 😭
It’s funny how #Coles and #Woolworths really don’t give a shit how slow and unreliable the self service checkouts are, given the operators are paying them rather than the other way around.
Some days the duopoly on supermarkets really depresses me!
We used to have lovely health food shops in the district... no more
We used to have continental delicatessens... no more
We used to have a local Asian grocer... no more!
Yah, we still have butchers, & fruit and vege shops. (Though they have only really flourished since the supermarkets put the F&V prices up)
All I wanted was some sago, tapioca & some other specialised gluten free alternatives... I'm going to have to drive 16km to get to the closest shop that sells them, thanks to the duopoly undercutting & then deciding that stocking the items was not economical!