This was posted 6 years 5 months 23 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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[VIC, NSW, QLD, WA] Free Recycled Plastic Bags (Was 15¢) @ Woolworths

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Read in news today.

Woolworths will offer complimentary 15¢ reusable bags to any customer in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and WA caught bag-less between today (29 June) and Sunday, July 8.

"This will not only help support customers as they work to form new habits, but also ensure they’ll have reusable bags on hand when they next choose to shop with us.”

Also from Woolworths website:

That’s why from Friday 29th June until Sunday 8th July, if you forget your bags, we’re offering complimentary reusable bags for your shopping.

This offer is only available in NSW, QLD, VIC & WA to to help our customers in the states where we have made the change to being single-use plastic bag free.

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    • “a mere 15c extra” it all adds up…. though I agree with your point it’s never acceptable to take out frustrations on the employee.

    • now customers are completely accustomed forced to bringing their own bags

      "I have suffered so much and had to take it lying down for so long. I am glad that now everyone else has to endure the same agony as I do." Just like that you do nothing against but support the fact "if after 6pm, or on Saturday or Sunday, is probably underpaid".

    • Yeah and it is never acceptable for a check out operator to take her frustration out on a customer. Went through check out at woolie's tonight with a box of nappies, couple of bags of chips, and a couple of tubs of ice cream, and of course being an OzBargainer I wasn't going to bring my own bag until I had to.

      Operator: rudely 'are you going to carry these'

      Me: 'no' expecting them to be placed in a "complimentary bag"

      Operator: 'I've ran out of plastic bags.' reluctantly pulls out the 15c bags from under the counter hidden from view, 'I've got this 15c bag which is free until Sunday but you have to bring it back next week'

      Me: I'm thinking WTF? 'don't worry about it I'll just hold it'.

      If you don't want to give out bags then don't say they're complimentary! Woolie's has just lost a customer for life.

      p.s. also shopped at coles today and they packed all my stuff in the 15c bags like they normally would the old thin grey plastic ones.

      • Sounds like the operator was being stupid. I went to Woollies on Thursday night, the operator asked me if I had bags I said no and he packed everything in the 15c bags which were free and did not even try to squash too much stuff in them. How was sh going to make sure you would return the bag, and would they then try to sell it! But do forgive Woollies they have good specials.

      • +1

        'I've got this 15c bag which is free until Sunday but you have to bring it back next week'

        Maybe she wasn't clear. Today is the last day that those bags are free, then you would have to bring it back next time you shopped if you don't want to pay for them.

        Woolie's has just lost a customer for life.

        No they haven't. Don't be dumb.

        • Agree, would be like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

        • @Yola:

          Nah it's no skin off my nose. There's nothing that woolie's discounts that coles doesn't.

        • @djlee:
          But if you only shop there they will offer you less of the FlyBuys emailed special offers

  • ……..what's the point of this whole plastic bag thing

    • +2

      make money from bags thats the whole point

  • +1

    How about they start by stopping all of those glossy brochures in our letterboxes and newspapers?

  • Can imagine the people are self checkout. Putting 1 item in each bag as the minimum.

    • -1

      You don't even need to. You can just scan 10 bags if you want.

      • Have you tried this? My first bag wasn't discounted until I added another item (perhaps another bag counts as an item though).

  • -4

    the bags is free and im not stpuid

  • +4

    I don’t get this no plastic bag thing. Sure it’s good for the environment. However that’s only if you were not recycling them. I use the bags in place of buying bags for placing rubbish in them to put in the bin. Also use it as a liner in the bins in the kitchen. Now I have to buy garbage bags. So I am still using single use plastic. In the 60s and 70s the supermarkets had paper bags and they were free. Why can’t the supermarkets just go back to providing paper bags??? There is lots of paper to recycle so that shouldn’t be a problem.

    • lol it's never about the environment

    • I read some articles from other regions/countries. When supermarkets stopped giving free bags, the sales volume of plastic bin liners etc went up a huge amount. So you're right, under that scenario there is no change to the environment, just more money in the pockets of the supermarket and suppliers and less in the consumer's pocket.

  • +1

    predicition - woolies will find that they will sell LESS products per customer.. the bags will come back because paying for those shitty grey plastic bags will end up being more profitable

  • +2

    In the warehouse grocers in the US, they just use the boxes the stuff came in instead of bags. The boxes are stacked at the checkout area. When you go to check-out, there's already an empty trolley waiting at the end. You put your stuff on the conveyor and go grab your boxes and place them into the empty trolley. Then, as the person continues to put items through, you just keep filling the boxes. When you're done, your original trolley stays for the next person. The cardboard gets recycled by the customer.

    Why can't we do that here?

    • Because the government, woolies and Coles are all crappy

    • Because it's too easy, and there's no cash money in it.

    • +2

      Bunnings and aldi already have that method. But that's no different to having your own cardboard or crates and then transferring them into your car.

    • It was like that here (Sydney) for years when i was a kid. Supermarkets used to have a huge wooden rack at the front of the store filled with all the boxes that were emptied by stocking the store. I cannot recall if it was every supermarket chain, I was a kid then. Franklins definitely did, we shopped there most and I also worked there as a youngster stocking shelves and we had to throw all our boxes into the big rack/dispenser.

      But i also recall that they used to stock the store during the day back then, not after hours like they seem to do most of the time now. There would be no one nowadays emptying boxes to throw to the front for customers. A full rack from overnight would be empty within 30-60 mins of not being continually fed.

      • +1

        The box issue with supermarkets like Coles and Woolies is that the paper companies actually pay these supermsrkets for the boxes. People like visyboard pay Coles and Woolies for the boxes. I asked about a box one time and the shelf packers actually said they could spare one or two but nothing on a regular basis. That’s why you don’t see boxes lying around anymore.

    • Similar thing in Korea.

  • My local were not giving free bags.

    • Mine at Wetherill Park NSW were handing them out as you walked in with instructions to scan them at the checkout

  • They're not free on their own. If they bag your shopping they include the bags without the extra charge but you can't just get the bags.

  • +4

    Went to Woolies today with intention of just getting 1 thing, but ended up doing a big shop. Scanned my meat, yogurt (bagged separately) and the Woolies check came over and said very loudly ' YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO FILL UP THE BAGS. JUST BECAUSE ITS COMPLIMENTARY DOESNT MEAN ITS FREE' . Pretty sure it does, and in hindsight, I should have just left everything behind and walked out as it was so rude.

    • +3

      You should have done exactly that, that is utterly ridiculous, I got a few bags today and didn't use one of them but kept for the next shop and they had no issues at all with it

      I just read an article about woolies also denying using competitor bags, this whole situation is getting stupid now

      • I was pretty shocked and just wanted to finish and get out as it was so crowded. Should have looked at her name to file a complaint.

        • +1

          I'd react the exact same way, you should go back and complain and just give them a brief description of the staff member, im sure the manager would love to hear that review because that is not normal behaviour.

          I used to work in retail, and if that ever happened we would get torn to shreds

    • You did everyone in Australia a favour. I did a similar thing. Thank you!

  • +6

    What a stuffed up world we live in. On eBay 10% GST is more than 10%, can’t get a (free) bag to carry home groceries, petrol is $1.60 or more per litre, electricity is overpriced, housing or rent is way overpriced, car airbags can kill you instead of save you (takata airbags), the government wants a tax concession for business which it says will lead to more jobs (nah, not hiring anyone new), weekend penalty rates for workers disappears, North Korea begins stockpiling weapons and on last night’s Masterchef they give each contestant $10,000 and the youngest contestant doesn’t know what to do with a cheque!

    And that is the tip if the iceberg!

  • +1

    I thought the free bags would be the rugged green ones. Instead they're just thin plastic ones with a lightweight plastic strap handle.

  • Personally, I get the heavy duty paper/cotton/canvas bags from Coles/Woolies. I’ve bought them for $2-$4 max each and have been using them for 2-3years now. No fuss. Far better than any $0.15 reusable plastic bags.

  • Today, did my usual rushed mid-lunch shop. Intending to grab some free bags along the way.

    Did the shop, as usual there's no one there at 12:30pm on a Friday, but after 5:30pm? F— that.

    The fun part of this story is when I went to checkout. I was always planning on self-serve checkouts, but the hilarious moment when, as walking past the manned checkouts, there were 2 people standing there at the front waving me in like I was a white old dude in Thailand with no idea how to eat or lay.

    One of them said, "Do you want to come with me to this checkout?"..

    "Nah, I'm going to do it myself." (last time they took a good 5minutes for a $80 shop)

    I couldn't stop laughing at this point, the last time I went there at 8pm 6months ago they had no one on registers. The store was just as it was then, except now they were loading the registers… Got me thinking and pondering. Anyway I went on to the self serves.

    Ah, the bags I wanted to get for free, reached out and grabbed 4 of them to do some bagging and holy (profanity), Woolworths has done the switcharoo, they realise that so many people will be avoiding the checkouts (hence the guys asking) and that so many people would be stocking up on bags…. they switched the 15c bags with one that look like they were made in the back by a teenager and some toilet rolls. Definitely worth about 5c if anything. The decomposing ones that decompose in your hands.

    This made me laugh, not only have Woolworths switched them out, they've been game on it since the beginning.

    My plan was foiled because Woolworths is too stingy to give 10 days of 15c bags. They have a C plan.

    • +1

      I sware I just read this word for word in a different post

      • They deleted it because clearly I'm talking about this deal…. ??? lol weird.

        • I went today as well ! At the self checkouts it was the cheapie looking 15c 'carrot' bags, but when I went to the return counter, I could see the 'watermelon' ones at the manned registers.

        • +1

          @kza2610: They are scummy (profanity) Woolies.

    • Coles is giving out the normal 15c bags though.

  • +1

    By the look and feel, Coles 15c bags are inferior to the Woolworths ones. The Woolworths 15c water melon bags are made in either China or Thailand. Don't know about how much are the carbon footprint and fossil energy it uses. Instead of laid at each self-checkout, both Coles and Woolworths now place them aside.

    Researches show such "heavy duty reusable" plastic bags need to be used at least 200 times to offset the damage they causes. But the truth is some of bags were already ripped, stretched and had holes after one single use. I highly doubt these bags are able to sustain 10 uses.

    Some other shops simply provide the "same" plastic bags except they are thicker than 35 microns and customers have to pay for them. I also doubt these bags cost more than 15c than the old "single use" bags to the merchants.

    So the result of the bag ban is we the customers now pay more to do more damage to the environment, and merchants and overseas plastic bag suppliers pocket the windfall.

    Ironic.

    • In VIC, the 15c Woolies and Coles one are the exact same materials, both made in Germany with the exception the Woolies ones have another two holes in the top for the bag holders at the checkout.

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