SA's bag ban sparks liner boom

South Australia's ban on the provision of free plastic bags in supermarkets has had an unintended consequence – an huge rise in the sale of plastic bin liners, the  state parliament has been told.

A report tabled in parliament says that despite enthusiastic community support for  the plastic bag ban in the state, sales of bin liners had increased by more than 80 per cent.

The research, conducted late last year by the Ehrenberg Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia, said the plastic bag ban implemented in May 2009 had had a flow-on effect of increasing household purchases of bin liners from 15 per cent to 80 per cent.

The research surveyed 614 supermarket shoppers across the state. It The found the ban on lightweight single-use plastic shopping bags had not stopped households lining their bins, which had led to the increase in the purchase of bin liners.

“A lot of people like to line their bins still, about nine in 10 we think line their bins,” one of the study’s authors, Dr Anne Sharp, told the ABC. “When bags are not given free from the supermarket people now buy bin liners.

She said there was a positive side, however.

“They don’t tend to use as many bin liners as they would receive plastic bags from the supermarket, so they’re not sending the same number to landfill, they’re not throwing plastic bags out,” Dr Sharp said.