Woolworths to introduce new ‘plastic-bag-free’ stores

After a six month trial in four of its Western Cape stores, Woolworths has announced that it will be introducing three more ‘plastic shopping bag free’ stores across the country.

The company also plans to roll out its new low-cost reusable bag to more stores in the coming months, it said in a statement.

From May, the reusable shopping bags will be rolled out to 15 additional Woolworths stores, the group said.

Maroun Square in Johannesburg, Moreleta Village in Pretoria and Delcairn Centre in Durban will also become entirely free of single-use plastic shopping bags.

“Apart from the obvious benefit of helping customers change to reusable bags, the project has other important spin-offs,” the company said.

“The reusable shopping bag’s fabric is made locally out of recycled plastic bottles and is recyclable.

“To date the production of the low-cost reusable bag has resulted in over 129 000 plastic bottles being removed from South African waste streams to be recycled and made into the bag’s fabric.

Woolworths said that it expects this figure to increase significantly with the rollout to 15 more stores.

The additional Woolies stores that will start selling the low cost reusable bag from May 2019 include:

• Constantia Village (Cape Town)
• Delcairn Centre* (Durban)
• Douglasdale (Johannesburg)
• Durban West St (Durban)
• Hout Bay (Cape Town)
• I’langa Mall (Nelspruit)
• Knysna Mall (Knysna)
• Lilies Quarter (Durban)
• Maroun Square* (Johannesburg)
• Moreleta Village* (Pretoria)
• Nelspruit Crossings (Nelspruit)
• Nicolway (Bryanston)
• Parkview Kimiad (Pretoria)
• Sandton City (Sandton)
• Waterstone (Somerset West)

* Single-use plastic shopping bag free store.

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