Australia: the country that went to war over plastic bags

These days, culture wars can break out on any topic. From NFL stars kneeling to female Time Lords, and even chicken rendang, instant outrage is now an endlessly renewable resource.

 ‘It should be obvious to anyone who’s seen photos of the Great
Pacific garbage patch, which is now far larger than France,
that we need to reduce plastic waste’

In Australia, the furore du jour is banning plastic bags, where much of the country lags behind Botswana, Tanzania, and the state of South Australia, which abandoned them in 2009 without any detriment besides the lost sales of 400 million bags.

Following a public campaign, most Australian supermarket chains removed single-use plastic bags a few weeks ago, and while Woolworths has held the line, its major competitor Coles has been thrashing around like a bluefin tuna choking on one of their bags.

Read the opinion by Dom Knight from The Guardian - “Australia: the country that went to war over plastic bags."