I contacted Coles a week or so ago to confirm that when putting out my coles plastic shopping bags for recycling that I can add any Redcycle items to be recycled also. I'm not sure why both supermarkets don't market this more, I loathe plastic and feel its one of the worst items ever made. Interested to know others thoughts on this.
DO you get your 15 cents back too?
Tbh I couldn't care less about the money or the bags (aka the environment). The whole scam of switching to "reusable" bags has changed nothing from our consumption perspective, and probably makes us ( as a society) feel good thinking we have made a change. If anything we are collectively wasting more plastic via thicker bags. Especially with takeout bags etc.
We just pay the 60 cents for 4 bags each time and then just send them for reycling. I'd be happer with paper bags but not offered through coles.
They stopped it during the covid lockdown. I still won’t do it because it doesn’t seem hygienic. I don’t want my coles delivery driver handling other peoples’ garbage even if there wasn’t a pandemic. Then the delivery driver has to risk entering the Coles store to return the plastic.
The other issue is RedCycle is just downcycling it into a plastic furniture.. then after 10 years the chair is landfill again so it’s just a marketing gimmick and not actually sustainable.
I'm going to guess the drivers have a separate bin to put redcycling stuff in, they wouldn't walk through the store themselves to drop it in there.
You're also meant to clean stuff before you redcycle it (which probably doesn't happen) and put it into something that's clean (i.e. put it all into an old woolies or coles bag). If they're handing it over loose I imagine they get told to get stuffed, or if it's actually dirty.
Plus the big supermarkets are about convenience, not looking after their staff. Otherwise they'd actually mandate wearing masks in their stores and enforce it.
Do they not sanitise their hands between drops? Especially if picking up recycling.
It’s a good point though, soft plastic recycling should really sit with other waste management and not with the person delivering your groceries.
Just wait for aldi. These both are useless
My local council does this thing where they get you to put all your soft plastics into a yellow bag and put it in your yellow bin. A hell of a lot easier; maybe write to your council
That’s great - which council?
What the? I've lived on the Central Coast for 25 years and have never heard of this! I always dump my soft plastics down at the local Coles into the RedCycle bin but maybe not now.
@Youfah Mizzum: Yeah wild hey, it’s pretty new I think https://www.centralcoast.nsw.gov.au/council/news/media-relea…
I use them as bin liners. They seem to fill up with trash about the same rate that I buy them, I don't know how that's possible online shopping I suppose. Anyway they are tough bags, watertight, and comfortably line most small bins. The bags are 15 cents each and you can conveniently buy them individually when you do each grocery shop as they are strong enough to carry groceries. The bags are so high quality as small bin liners that I would probably buy a pack of 100 for $15 if I had to. It's kinda the ultimate bag, over the years they came up with a design that doesn't break under a huge load, it's big, contains spills, resists piercing, is guaranteed clean and food-safe. Just for the convenience when shopping I'd pay 50 cents each if I had to, rather than carry bags with me from home like I'm some professional shopper or something. You need to bag your trash anyway, why not use these little bags. Why buy dedicated garbage bags and recycle your shopping bags, reusing has to be better than recycling.
reusing has to be better than recycling
Not necessarily.
You're 're-using' once, on a trip to the dump. The reusable bags are, as you allude to, much thicker than a standard garbage bag. So you're using, say, twice as much plastic to line your bin as you could be.
Some people re-use their shopping bags 50+ times and use newspaper, chip packets, or other non-reusable shopping bags for their garbage.
Also, OP is referring to 'other redcycle items', meaning all the soft plastic packaging. If you're filling up your trash quickly from online shopping it's possible you didn't know that soft plastic packaging is recyclable (into park benches and similar) via this scheme.
and use newspaper, chip packets, or other non-reusable shopping bags for their garbage.
Must be a lot of sticker tape used as well to give them extra storage space to get the right sizes to fit in the bin or their bin is small enough that one newspaper or empty chip packet is enough…or they just use it without a bin and scrap the whole lot once it's filled up.
The people that do this in order to minimise their waste aren't likely to be adding a bunch of tape lol.
They might put it in the bin and aim carefully, or use it by itself as you say.
@abb: hahaha, I used to take those smaller JB HiFi / EB Games bags, cut them out so I could join 4 of them together with sticky tape so that they would fit in my cardboard bin I had in my room. Now they've stopped giving out those bags unless asked for.
Dunno if it was worth recycling those bags and using up all that tape to do so or not instead of simply throwing them out or using them by themselves….
Yep, and you can also give your bags back to them when you pick up groceries at click and collect. We just put them all in the bags and they dispose of them for us.