'Mad marketing': Coles Little Shop for children undercuts plastic bag ban, critics say
‘Mad marketing’: Coles Little Shop for children undercuts plastic bag ban, critics say
The Guardian
Alexandra Spring
Environmental groups and health advocates have denounced Coles’s new Little Shop promotion as “commercial exploitation of kids”, “nonsensical” and “environmentally damaging”.
From Wednesday, Coles shoppers will be offered a free toy – a miniature version of 30 well-known household products – with every $30 spent.
The range includes mini Tim Tams, Vegemite, Nutella, Leggo’s pasta sauce jars and Oak chocolate milk cartons. The minis are made from various materials including paper, cardboard, plastic and foam, and “where possible” from the same material as the original product, although some, including the mini bananas and bottled water, are made from hard plastics.
The executive director of the Boomerang Alliance, Jeff Angel, said: “The vast majority of these so-called collectables will be thrown away, finding their way into the litter stream and certainly landfill. It’s another example of mad marketing that doesn’t care about wasting resources and polluting the environment.
At the beginning of July, Coles stopped giving out lightweight plastic bags, announced its produce bags would be made of 30% recycled content, committed to cutting down the plastic packaging of fruit and began introducing bins for customers to recycle soft plastic.