UPDATE: Woolworths stores across the country will stop providing customers will single-use plastic bags from tomorrow, June 20.

The ban officially comes into play across the country from July 1 — with the exception of NSW, ‘cos our government is terrible, although Woolies and Coles will take it upon themselves to expand the ban to NSW — but Woolies are rolling it out early, in order to get customers use to the idea.

“Our teams have been hard at work reminding local customers about the upcoming change in recent weeks, and the feedback from the community has been really positive so far”, a spokesperson for Woolies told news.com.au.

“We’ll continue to closely monitor the feedback from customers as the change comes into effect to ensure any lessons we learn from the initial two stores is reflected in our national rollout in a few month’s time.”

Thicker, reusable bags will be available for 15c apiece.

Before you cry foul, keep in mind that Woolies customers pick up 3.2 billion bags a year. And that’s just Woolies!

If that didn’t shock you, here’s a video of a whale slowly dying due to that exact bag you carried home your LeSnak packs in.

“We know the removal of single-use plastic bags is a significant change for some of our customers”, the spokesperson continued, “but we believe very strongly it is the right thing to do for the environment.”

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