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One huge reason why Woolworths bags are better than Coles

A shopper carrying a reusable shopping bag is seen at a Woolworths Sydney CBD store, Sydney, Monday, July 2, 2018. (AAP Image/Peter RAE)
A shopper carrying a reusable shopping bag is seen at a Woolworths Sydney CBD store, Sydney, Monday, July 2, 2018. (AAP Image/Peter RAE)

Both Woolworths and Coles replaced free plastic bags last year with cheap reusable bags. But one supermarket’s offer seems to be far superior than its rival.

Woolworths’ green ‘Bag for Good’ bags, as first noticed by the OverSixty website, comes with a lifetime guarantee.

“Use this bag again and again. If it gets damaged, we’ll replace it for free,” says the bag itself.

Coles’ bags have no such guarantee.

Woolworths has several types of reusable bags on sale, and the guarantee comes on the 99-cent green variety. There are cheaper 15c recycled plastic, 99c foldable and $2.49 chiller bags that are not covered by the lifetime replacement.

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“Simply bring your damaged bag to the customer service desk in any of our stores and we’ll swap it for a new one. We’ll even recycle your old one so it can keep doing good,” said the Woolworths website.

Yahoo Finance screenshot of Woolworths website listing the reusable bags on sale.
Yahoo Finance screenshot of Woolworths website listing the reusable bags on sale.

Woolworths also offers a refund for customers that received reusable bags from an online order.

“When it’s time for your online reusable bags to be recycled, simply hand them back to us for recycling with REDcycle while receiving a new online order and we’ll refund $1 against your latest order,” Woolworths states on its website.

“To do this, please pass the online reusable bags to a service desk team member while collecting a new pick up order in our stores, or to your delivery driver when receiving a new delivery order.”

Coles does not currently have an equivalent refund program in place.

The third major supermarket player in Australia, Aldi, has never had free plastic bags and have always directed customers to use reusable bags or cardboard boxes. Aldi Australia does not offer refund or lifetime warranties on its bags.

Woolworths said last year that the prohibition of free single-use bags would get 3.2 billion of those plastic bags out of circulation — and out of its eventual place in rubbish tips — each year.

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