Green Bag
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Green Bags
gs are inexpensive reusable shopping bags common in Australia and also used in some other countries.
Green Bags are commonly distributed in Australia at the point of sale by supermarkets and similar retail outlets. They are priced very affordably (usually AUD1.00) and are intended to be reused repeatedly to replace the use of hundreds of HDPE plastic bags.
This arose from an Australian Federal Government initiative in 2003 – essentially a threat to outlaw plastic bags if retailers did not voluntarily discourage their use.
History
Australia
In 2002 the Australian Federal Government studied the use of throwaway plastic bags and threatened to outlaw them if retailers did not voluntarily discourage their use.
In 2003 the government negotiated with the Australian Retailers Association http://www.ara.com.au a voluntary progressive reduction of plastic bag use which led to a number of initiatives, including the widespread distribution and promotion of Green Bags.
There are two types of recycled paper and different combinations of the two. Post-consumer paper or board is made from office waste or in the case of boxes, newspaper waste. and mill waste. Generally recycled paper is not as strong as virgin materials; however, new developments have produced 100% post consumer bag paper that is suitable for retail packaging. It is also possible to make mixtures of virgin and post consumer materials in order to enhance the strength factors for particular applications. Post-consumer packaging is made from recycled shopping bags and papers, while mill waster is new packaging created from left over materials at a paper mill.
Paper remains the superior selection. Plastic does not recycle as well as paper. The primary reason it is much harder to collect the same forms of plastic materials. In addition it is difficult to maintain a pure white base color because of the contamination of the plastic collected. Unlike paper, there is no de-inking process. Generally, plastic loses more strength when recycled compared to paper.
Many reusable green bags or environmental bags, however, are made to last rather than be recycled, and often use materials such as Tyvek and polyethelene. These are stable materials made of plastic, commonly used in the artifact preservation field.
