Hi, BTN, I'm Meg from Mornington Peninsula, Victoria,
and I'm really excited that Coles and Woolworths
have put a price on single-use plastic bags
and that's just the start.
JACK EVANS: As you can tell, Meg is pretty passionate about plastic.
I'm passionate about banning plastic bags
because I've grown up on the Mornington Peninsula
where there are bays all around me.
I've come to realise that our precious marine life
are getting killed by the so-called innocent plastic bag.
For the past five years,
she's been campaigning to have single-use plastic bags
banned from all shops in Australia.
It's something South Australia, Tasmania,
the ACT and the Northern Territory already do.
If you live in one of these states or territories,
instead of plastic bags,
customers have to bring their own reusable bags to supermarkets.
Or they can purchase tougher plastic bags that can be re-used.
But Meg is hoping to make that ban national.
She's been working hard collecting signatures
for a petition to ban plastic bags,
and has even written to some politicians.
I've been campaigning for five years now
and I have written letters to Malcolm Turnbull,
Josh Frydenberg,
and other local, state and federal ministers.
I've had a response from multiple ministers,
including Malcolm Turnbull himself, and Josh Frydenberg
They've said that there is no...
That it's up to local ministers to do something about it.
Plastic bags are really bad for the environment
because they can take 1.000 years to decompose
and a lot of them end up in our waterways.
Over 5 trillion pieces of plastic end up in our ocean.
80% of that are plastic bags.
Turtles think they're jellyfish so they eat, swallow,
then choke and die on our plastic bags.
That's why we need to stop plastic bags.
You can do something.
In the past, some supermarkets have provided drop-off points,
where customers can recycle their used plastic bags.
But now, Woolworths and Coles have announced
they'll be phasing out single-use bags in all of their stores.
We've been looking at the feedback we get back from our customers,
as well as the impact on the environment,
and we think it's an incredibly important thing to do,
and part of our commitment
to a greener, more sustainable Australia.
It's something Meg has been waiting to hear for a long time.
It's really good that Coles and Woolworths
have put a price on single-use plastic bags.
But we really need to stop plastic bags altogether.
She says she'll now be putting her efforts
into getting smaller supermarkets to agree to a phase-out too.
I also want to get local independent supermarkets on board.
I'm going to write letters to them
like I have to local, state and federal ministers.
Meg says it's important for kids like her to get involved.
I really want to spread the word to our generation,
because although children are 20% of the population,
we will be 100% of the future
because we are the next generation.
And it is our world too.