The Warehouse Plastic Pollution

Tony from Tahunanui

Last summer, with kids coming to stay, I went to the Warehouse to grab some buckets and spades for the beach. They had them alright, but they were flimsy, bendy even, and way less than useful at Tahunanui beach. Fortunately, I found solid ones at Para and all was sorted for the kids
Trouble is I could easily see the future of those zillions of The Warehouse plastic beach toys nation wide – soon broken and discarded at the beach by disappointed children so I wrote to The Warehouse explaining that I accepted it was too late to change that summer’s stock but asking they got better stuff this year.
The Warehouse responded saying they stood by the quality of their stock and it was the parents’ responsibility to stop their children littering.
Going back in this year I see their plastic spades can be bent into a circle with the gentle use of just one finger.
The buckets were, if possible, even flimsier.
The Warehouse may reckon it’s doing its bit by encouraging shoppers to not use single use shopping bags but they are doing parents, children and the environment – including all sea creatures – a major disservice (harm in the case of the sea creatures) selling such obviously not fit for purpose plastic to take to the beach.
My own kids buckets and spades only got taken to the op shop, battered but still perfectly serviceable, once they had left home and we finally cleared up after them.
This Christmas, if you don’t want to waste money on junk and do care for the environment you might want to look at how ‘single use’ a lot of The Warehouse stock – not just the buckets and spades – are.