Cape Town is getting its first “plastic free” grocery store
Can’t we just start doing this at our big supermarkets too?
It might sound a bit “Hipster”, but Cape Town is getting its very first plastic free grocery store and it’s a very good thing.
Nude Foods will be open their first store at Constitution Street in the Mother City in November and there will be no plastic in sight.
This is all in the spirit of pollution control as Nude Foods says in their promotional video, “Only 17 percent of plastic is recycled. The rest ends up in our oceans and landfills.” On top of offering plastic-free shopping, the store will be “offering non-GMO, healthy and affordable wholefoods and earth-friendly body and home products – all sold by weight.”
Consumers will have to bring their own containers or use in-store environmentally friendly packaging instead of plastic.
Kenya recently outlawed all plastic bags from entering the country, with fines as heavy as R500 000 and even jail time for those who transgress.
South Africa is not quite as strict, although, the country did start charging for plastic bags some years ago. England has done the same and, according to reports, has seen an 85% drop in the use of plastic bags. The effect here in Mzansi has not been quite the same, last year it was reported that charging for plastic bags has actually turned into a lucrative business.
IOL reported last year:
The [plastic bag] levy has proved to be lucrative for the government and retailers: according to the latest available statistics, R1.1 billion was collected by the state between 2003 up to the end of August 2014, in addition to about R5bn charged by retailers and suppliers.
Needless to say, we’ve still got some way to go before adopting a “plastic free” approach and Nude Foods could be the first step in that direction.
