Publications

Plastic check-out bag use in non-supermarket retail outlets

Planet Ark Environmental Foundation for the
Department of the Environment and Heritage, March 2005

The survey – Key results: 4

The study will establish an overview of plastic bag distribution in Australia at a national, state and local level. It will attempt to gauge the industry’s perception about plastic bag alternatives and to see if they are stocking alternatives such as ‘Green’ bags, calico and paper bags.

• Findings
• Analysis

Findings

• All distributors surveyed stock plastic bag alternatives.
• 6 out of the 7 distributors surveyed stock degradable bags.
• 5 out of the 7 distributors surveyed stock paper and calico bags
• 6 out of the 7 distributors surveyed stock polypropylene bags.
• Plastic check-out bags, however, are the biggest sellers for all distributors surveyed.
• Degradable bags are currently the biggest selling plastic bag alternative for 6 out of the 7 distributors surveyed that stock them.
• Of the distributors surveyed, degradable bags have the highest minimum unit order levels out of all plastic bag alternatives. However they are more readily affordable as they have a much cheaper unit cost.
• 4 out of the 7 distributors surveyed stated that their retail customers only request plastic bags and cite cost effectiveness as the reasons for their decision to primarily distribute plastic bags.
• 2 out of 7 distributors surveyed stated that more "outside pressure" would help increase their sales of reusable bags or other alternatives to plastic bags.
• 5 out of 7 distributors surveyed stated that they did not want to receive any further information on alternatives to plastic bags for distribution to their retail customers.

Analysis

From our research, we found there was up to a thousand plastic bag distributors ranging from very small local level distributors to distributors that have networks right across Australia.

Given the time constraints of this report, Planet Ark identified key distributors for this survey to give us a brief overview of how this industry works.

We chose the surveyed distributors based on the wide range of their annual turnovers and their representation in differing retail networks. As such, this survey has enabled us to present a keyhole view into the distribution industry.

All distributors who responded to this survey stated that they primarily stocked plastic bags because of retailer demand and their low unit cost. However, it is encouraging to report that all distributors surveyed stock plastic bag alternatives.

The fact that all distributors surveyed stock well-priced plastic bag alternatives reveals that the onus of plastic bag reduction in the non-supermarket retailer sector lies with the retailers themselves.