Retailer Mr Price has defended its policy of providing free plastic bags to customers, saying legislation currently does not force retailers to charge for bags.
The group was responding to a letter received from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism last week insisting that it stop giving away plastic shopping bags.
On Wednesday June 25, Mr Price announced that it was complying in full with the new plastic bag regulations which came into effect on May 9 and June 20, in that its bags were, and always had been, the requisite thickness as mandated by the department.
CEO Alastair McArthur said on Monday that legislation currently did not force retailers to charge for bags. The main legislative change was to the bag specifications, more particularly the required thickness of the bags, as measured in microns.
“The reason the major grocery retailers are charging for bags is based on a Memorandum of Agreement signed last year between government and the major grocery chains in South Africa. Mr Price, amongst others, was not signatory to the agreement, yet government refers to ‘organised business’ being party to the agreement,” McArthur stated.
“We have had a very negative reaction from our customers to charging for bags, for which they never had to pay before,” he added. “We are not incurring additional expenditure for our shopping bags, and do not feel our customers should have to either. It is clear to us that we lack the legal justification to charge for bags.
“The entire aim of the new legislation was to mandate the production of thicker plastic bags which were suitable for recycling or reuse, which our bags already are. Our bags have never been an environmental hazard and customers have shown a strong propensity for re-use or recycling.
“To the best of our knowledge, the plastics industry is also suffering severe losses as a result of the new legislation and we see no good reason to make this worse.
“When the legislation first came into effect, we tried the new concept of charging for bags. Our customers have let the company know very clearly that they resent purchasing bags for which they previously did not pay. Our staff was verbally abused and reported many cases of irate customers who were refusing to pay for bags.
“Many of our customers are familiar with the legislation and know very well that the issue of charging for bags is not legislated. They therefore have concluded that we were simply trying to make money out of bags. This was beginning to show in the company’s customer satisfaction studies and in some cases, in sales. We also suffered severe shrinkage and security problems during this time.
“Importantly, charging for bags means we would have to adjust prices to remove the cost of bags which means the repricing, literally, of millions of goods in our stores. Goods are marked, unlike grocers, who work on a bar code system.
“Mr Price is fully supportive of any environmental measure which serves to protect one of South Africa’s greatest assets. However, the quality of our bags means that they are already recycled and reused, and therefore, it is unreasonable and unjustifiable to single Mr Price out for criticism.
“As the second largest apparel retailer in South Africa, we were not consulted on the Memorandum of Agreement between retailers and government. Because we were excluded from the negotiations, we simply implemented what we thought was new Government legislation. It was only recently that we were advised by our lawyers that selling plastic bags was not legislated.
“It is certainly not our intention to irritate either government or our grocery colleagues. We will continue to communicate with government on this important issue and would like to give our assurance that if at any time in the future, government were to legislate the actual sale of plastic bags, we would comply immediately, as we do with all laws of the country,” McArthur said. ‒ I-Net Bridge