In the bid to reduce carbon footprint, online grocery shopping has become a wonderful ally. We no longer need to jump behind the wheel and burn petrol for every shopping trip. It's also a brilliant time-saver!

But it seems there's a hiccup in this dream scenario, at least for one Australian mum who has urged Woolworths and Coles to ditch the paper bags when delivering her groceries.

With two pre-school-aged children under her care, the convenience of online grocery shopping is immeasurable. For her, not only does it save precious gas money, but it also means no towing kids around aisles or dealing with supermarket tantrums, and it graciously gifts her with time–the one thing money can't buy.

But it seems Woolworths and Coles' efforts in trying to make home deliveries environmentally friendly have left her unsatisfied.

'Stop delivering my online shopping in bags. I have no use for them, and they go straight from your delivery truck into my bin,' she said.

For this mum, the problem lies in the excess of paper bags she accumulates weekly, as she ends up with a dozen or so bags every week.

One mum urged Woolworths and Coles to stop delivering her groceries in paper bags due to the excessive amount of paper bags she accumulates in a week. Image source: Freepik.

Unless you’ve found a way to reuse them, these bags just end up in the recycling bin or landfill. Paper bags are also less durable and, therefore, harder to reuse.

With her short trip from the front door to the kitchen pantry, these bags feel unnecessary. And even though they are made of recycled paper, it actually takes more energy to manufacture or recycle a paper bag.

Her stand: 'Plastic is not good, but more paper bags are not better'.

She posted her predicament on social media, asking if anyone had ideas to repurpose a glut of paper bags she'd accrued.

Suggestions included lining bins, using them for compost, and even igniting bonfires.

Australian supermarkets have started using paper bags when throwing the towel in the ring on reusable plastic bags in a bid to comply with stricter reusability measures, and pandemic restrictions necessitating contactless deliveries, all in the best interest of health and safety. But these bags did generate significant piles of waste.

In response to why the bags are still mandatory after the World Health Organisation’s announcement of the end of the global health emergency declaration due to COVID-19, a Woolworths spokesperson stated that they began to default to paper bags for deliveries to 'ensure [they] comply with the new Queensland government ban on plastic shopping bags that starts [September 1]'.

Meanwhile, a Coles representative mentioned that the bag-less option was removed during the pandemic for health and safety reasons but assured that they are 'constantly reviewing delivery options'.

Finding themselves in a similar dilemma, one savvy Coles Shopper took their excessive amount of paper bags and used them as an underlay in a raised planter, which created a barrier between the soil and the ground to prevent weeds and pests from wreaking havoc on their garden.

While another shared that they now use the supermarket paper bags for whatever needed newspapers—perhaps to wrap items or packages in.

You can read more about these brilliant solutions to the excessive amount of paper bags accumulated in this article.

Coles’ and Woolworths' efforts in moving away from plastic should definitely be applauded, but it’s clear that paper might not be the best alternative. We suggest they dig deeper, explore and find a way to deliver groceries bag-free.

For members who are similarly dissatisfied with the volume of paper bags that come with their online deliveries, we encourage you to provide feedback to your local supermarkets to raise their awareness.

Key Takeaways

• A woman has criticised Coles and Woolworths for delivering their online groceries in bags, saying they are wasteful and immediately thrown away.
  
• Despite COVID-19 no longer being considered a global health emergency, the supermarkets continue to deliver using bags, which the author questions.
  
• Coles and Woolworths suspended their bagless crate-to-bench services during the pandemic and have since switched to reusable and paper bags, however, an investigation revealed that hundreds of millions of plastic bags were being secretively stockpiled and not recycled.
  
• The woman argues that although paper bags may seem like a better alternative to plastic, they are less durable and take more energy to manufacture or recycle.
  

If you have any of those brilliant repurposing ideas, we’d love to hear them! Let us know in the comments below.

 

[Ree]

My mum used to line cake tins with the brown paper from these bags before plastic became the new thing. As this lady has children why doesn't she cut them so they are flat and have the kids use them for drawing, painting, finger painting or printing. Collect leaves to print or cut vegies to make stamps or buy premade stamps that the kids could use. Children could be introduced to the concept of reuse, recycle and reduce from an early age.
The children's artwork could then be used not only as pictures for the home, but could also be made with themes to use as wrapping paper for birthdays, Christmas etc.
As we do not have as many newspapers available to use now, wet the bags and use them as weed mat for raised garden beds or under pebbles paths etc.
If she has a worm farm / compost bin they could be shredded and used in these.

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure you could come up with more. Try Googling ideas.

 

[Jan Purcell]

paper bags easily split, saw one poor lady come across the crossing and her bag had split, use cloth bags when you go shopping, they are far better, you can wash them and reuse them over and over again.

 

[Veggiepatch]

paper bags easily split, saw one poor lady come across the crossing and her bag had split, use cloth bags when you go shopping, they are far better, you can wash them and reuse them over and over again.

Good point. Just a few weeks ago, I had a 1 litre Aldi Long Life Milk unexpectedly empty itself into my backpack.

Now if that was paper bag, I would've been in the same dilemma as your poor lady. Groceries everywhere!

 

[FayeB]

I worked at a supermarket when I was younger and we used paper bags, no handles. But then the "Wise" people in their ivory towers, decided we had to save the treees so plastic bags were introduced.
It's a joke!

 

[Veggiepatch]

About a two months ago at The Good Guys, I had my new Lenovo laptop given to me in a HUGE paper bag with thick string handles. Sturdy as.

Didn't cost me 25 cents though.

 

[bluetang]

I’m curious, do theses companies charge customers for the paper bags which they deliver her groceries in?
if that’s the case, and she or others have a large collection, at 30c a pop, I can’t see much savings.

these companies have most of their items delivered in cardboard boxes, so why aren’t they providing these to customers at no cost!
My local Green grocer, Fresh and save, Dan Murphys, Golden Circle, Costco, Bottlemart, just to name a few, give away their cardboard boxes to customers at no cost.

And it saves them getting rid of them in the garbage