Golden Bay Bag Lady Victoria Davis, Jo Knight CEO Zero Waste Trust, Rod Donald Co-Leader of the Green Party and Good Green Fairy Jive Jimenez travelled to the top of Takaka Hill, Golden Bay on Saturday 1st January to launch Golden Bay’s campaign to be the first Plastic Shopping Bag-Free Community in New Zealand.

On 1st January 2005, The Golden Bay Bag Ladies launched their Plastic Shopping Bag-Free Campaign on the top of Takaka Hill, welcoming visitors and returning residents with a free cloth bag. It is the start of a year-long programme of incentives and activities to re-educate shoppers to say NO to plastic shopping bags and to use eco-friendly alternatives such as bags made from cloth and recycled materials and cardboard boxes. They will be the first community in New Zealand, following other successful examples in Australia, Bangladesh and Singapore.

Victoria Davis, one of the Golden Bay Bag Ladies said “ We have given away hundreds of free cloth bags today, and visitors and returning residents were extremely appreciative and surprised to get their free bag, and planned to use it at the first shopping opportunity of the New Year. A great start to the campaign. We are hugely grateful to Lone Star Farms who sponsored the purchase and printing of the cloth bags, which made it all possible.”

Crowther Reynish, co-owner of Reynish’s Supervalue Supermarket in Takaka remarked “in the lead up to the launch we organised a promotion selling recycled polypropylene green bags at a great promotional price of 99 cents, and sold all 4000 bags in 3 weeks. Amazing, as there are only 5000 or so residents in Golden Bay!”

Rod Donald, Co-Leader of the Green Party who had been in Golden Bay for New Year Festivities, joined the launch team on the Takaka Hill saying “It’s a great way to start the year, encouraging everyone to make a New Year’s resolution to say NO to Plastic Shopping Bags, and make a personal positive difference to the amount of waste we each use”

Jo Knight, CEO of Zero Waste Trust, who had travelled from Auckland to join the Bag Ladies commented “New Zealanders use 3 million plastic shopping bags every day, and no matter how much we re-use them, eventually they all get thrown away as litter or go into landfill. It’s just wonderful to see this community making a stance to reduce waste.”

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