Family-owned grocer Harris Farm Markets announced last week a partnership with Clean Up Australia on its campaign to reduce the use of single-use, lightweight plastic bags across its 23 stores in NSW.
Firmly supporting the campaign to ban single-use plastic bags in NSW, Harris Farm Markets will donate five cents for every customer who refuses plastic bags at the checkout until the end of July in a bid to help change consumer behaviour. The grocer is aiming to reduce plastic-bag use at the checkout by 30 per cent, and continues to call on the NSW Government for a statewide ban.
Harris Farm Markets says it has been a long-term supporter of reducing plastic bag use, including previously partnering with Clean Up Australia on the issue, and always having alternative carry-bag options at the checkout.
Harris Farm Markets co-CEOs Angus, Luke and Tristan Harris have been campaigning for customers to make more sustainable choices at the checkout for many years.
“For at least 10 years, we have offered our customers the choice of boxes as an alternative to plastic bags, and will continue to encourage them to bring their own bags as we try to change the trajectory of our collective pollution,” Tristan Harris said. “We now also offer customers the choice to purchase reusable paper bags sold at cost price.”
“We see it as our responsibility to decrease our environmental footprint and drive change within our stores and nationwide. However, we are just one retailer, and the NSW government needs to enact this ban to avoid us facing a frightening future where we pollute and destroy our marine wildlife.”
Executive Chairman of Clean Up Australia Ian Kiernan AO is thrilled with the partnership. And media commentator Waleed Aly’s campaign for change, #BanTheBag, sheds much-needed light on the issue and will hopefully motivate customers to support the grocer’s in-store initiatives.