Woolworths became the first major Australian supermarket to remove single-use plastic bags from their stores as the chain considers letting shoppers bring in their own Tupperware for meat and fish products.
But now shoppers say the extra $3.50 charge for groceries delivered and unpacked to their homes is too high and rival Coles doesn’t charge for its crate-to-bench service at all.
Some customers have said the $3.50 charge to reduce packaging is hypocritical considering no efforts were made to avoid excess packaging with the regular $1 plastic bag delivery service.
Woolworths shoppers say the extra $3.50 charge for groceries delivered and unpacked to their homes is too high and rival Coles doesn’t charge for its crate-to-bench service at all
Woolworths’ new delivery option had promised to bring customers groceries using less plastic.
‘You charge me an extra dollar for my plastic bags to encourage a reduction in plastic bag use,’ one woman wrote on social media on Monday.
‘But you put my sealed meat, every single item, vegetables and cat food tins in plastic bags! Are you joking!! I’ll have that dollar back thanks.’
‘Until the fee [$3.50] is removed I will no longer use this service,’ another customer said.
‘Why don’t they go back to the way it was in the 70s and have a box bin near the checkouts for customers?’ another person suggested.
The new delivery option had promised to bring customers groceries using less plastic.
Woolworths became the first major Australian supermarket to remove single-use plastic bags from their stores last Wednesday
One inner-city Sydney couple, Kendra McCarthy and Cristobal Penailillo, told The Australian they have used the delivery service for a few months and assumed the $3.50 fee was to cover the cost of labour involved in delivery.
However, she said she found the service used just as much plastic.
‘We got like two potatoes in a plastic bag and then a capsicum in a plastic bag and then that came in a plastic bag … It does seem like they’re doing it to make more money,’ Ms McCarthy told the publication.
She said she supported discontinuing plastic bags but thought the reusable plastic bags contained much more plastic than regular bags.
‘It’s just making businesses more money and we’re using more plastic and it would be better off if we were encouraged to use our backpacks or avoiding plastic,’ she said.
‘You charge me an extra dollar for my plastic bags to encourage a reduction in plastic bag use,’ one woman wrote on social media on Monday. ‘But you put my sealed meat, every single item, vegetables and cat food tins in plastic bags! Are you joking!! I’ll have that dollar back thanks’
‘All our delivery and service prices are displayed in a straightforward and transparent way on our website,’ a Woolworths spokesman said.
A Coles spokeswoman said the supermarket ‘priced our bags based on the cost of supply and operational costs’ and denied its 15c bag charge was about ‘making a profit’.
Coles is set to discontinue single-use plastic bags nationally from July 1 and currently charge customers 15c per heavy-duty bag used in delivery.
Plastic bags are now being removed in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and Western Australia to comply with other states and territories.
The change is expected to take 3.2 billion single-use plastic bags out of the system and has been supported by the majority of Australian shoppers.