Target backdown bagged

A decision by retailer Target to end its four-year ban on free plastic bags in its stores has been slammed by academics and environmentalists.

The retailer earlier this week announced it would immediately end its practice, introduced in May 2009, of charging shoppers in its stores in Australia 10-20 cents for a biodegradable plastic bag at the checkout.

Target spokesman Jim Cooper said the backflip was prompted by widespread complaints. He said the company, owned by Wesfarmers, had received an average of 500 formal complaints annually about the bag fee, making the issue its top source of consumer gripes.

"Customers have clearly told us that they do not believe they should be forced to buy a bag," Cooper said.

In an article posted on The Conversation, however, a senior researcher on sustainability at the University of Adelaide's Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, Rosemary Anne Sharp, questioned the motives behind the move.

Noting the company had 308 stores across Australia, she said 500 complaints would work out as averaging less than two complaints per store a year, which she said seemed “a small number to trigger this change of policy”.

“Instead, Target appears to be responding to a very small but vocal minority,” she wrote.

She said that Target's stated reason for the change of heart on its bags policy ran counter to the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute's own research last year.

That study found that shoppers in South Australia, which introduced a statewide ban on lightweight single-use plastic bags in stores in 2008,  overwhelmingly supported the law and its aims.

Almost 80 per cent of shoppers surveyed for the report said they supported the state's ban, and since its introduction the number of shoppers regularly taking their own bags on shopping expeditions had doubled.

Indeed, the study said over half of respondents were supportive of extending the ban to include heavy and thick plastic bags, even though no such proposals were as yet on the political agenda.

Sharp instead pondered whether Target's backdown was prompted more by a decline in earnings. Target's latest annual report indicated its earnings had fallen to $136 million in 2012-13, down from $244 million the previous year.

Expanding on her comments to PKN, Sharp said Target's decision was out of step with what was happening in many other world markets, where major retailers are increasingly charging for plastic bags.

“It is a surprisingly backwards step,” she told PKN.

“The banning of plastic bags in supermarkets and retail stores is happening all over the world, yet in this case
they [Target] seem to be reacting in response to what is only a small minority.

“It's like just responding to a few squeaky wheels, rather than basing their decision on what the majority of their customer base wants.

“I think they run the risk of annoying a far more significant portion of their customer base than their original policy to charge for bags ever did.”

Other environmental groups have also slammed Target's move.

Planet Ark spokeswoman Janet Sparrow said the move was likely to increase plastic bag use.

"They [plastic bags] are a really visible example of our daily use of single-use items. They are made from non-renewable petroleum resources and can end up littering our waterways and natural areas, and harming wildlife," she said.

Of Australia's major retailers, Aldi currently charges for bags at the checkout. Coles and Woolworths provide free lightweight bags. Costco provides no bags at all, but stocks used cartons for customer use near its checkouts.

Nationally, the Northern Territory introduced a ban on lightweight bags, similar to South Australia's, in 2011. Tasmania has similar legislation due to come into effect in November this year.

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