Coles shopper hits out at 'significant difference' in reusable bags
A woman has shared a gripe about her Coles reusable plastic bag, claiming it “basically fails” at its intended purpose of being reusable.
The Melbourne woman took to Facebook with photos of her bag which has a number of holes and tears in it.
She wrote over the past couple of years she’s noticed the bags have been changing.
“When they were first rolled out, they were made in Germany, and were great,” she wrote.
“Then a year ago I was in Perth and I'd noticed that Coles [they] had switched to bags made in Malaysia. There is a very significant difference between the two.
“More recently, my local Coles in Footscray, Melbourne has also changed to bags made in Malaysia.”
Coles first rolled out its reusable bags in 2018 and removed single-use bags in the process. Woolworths did the same.
When they were first introduced, a number of Coles bags did have “made in Germany” labelled on them.
Some now appear to be made in Malaysia too.
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But a Coles spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia there hasn’t been any changes to its reusable bags.
“The thickness of the Coles Better Bag is 55 microns, which has remained the same with all our suppliers and been independently tested through third-party testing laboratories,” the spokesperson said.
“However, the 80 per cent recycled component of the Coles Better Bag may vary as it is comes from different sources.
“Since we have a number of suppliers supplying this product from different countries around the world there will be differences in the colour and texture.”
The woman claims Malaysian made bags don’t have the same “longevity” as their German counterparts.
“I look after my plastic bags – I fold them and keep them in my handbag in a separate compartment,” she wrote.
“And here's the difference I've noticed: this particular bag has only been used two, maybe three times, and it just doesn't hold up against Coles product packaging. It gets damaged and torn very easily, and basically fails the claim of being ‘re-usable’.”
She added the “quality isn’t there anymore” and the bag she pictured had been used to carry a bottle of shampoo, punnet of strawberries, long-life milk and “random stuff like that”.
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