Earlier this year shoppers in our mother country were faced with a compulsory plastic bag levy at all major retailers.
The decision was labelled "ridiculous and unnecessary" by some, while others say it's our responsibility to clean up the environment.
In so-called clean green New Zealand we don't have a bag tax.
Pak'nSave introduced a charge in 1985. North Island customers pay 10c per bag while those in the South Island pay 5 cents.
The Warehouse also charge for their plastic bags. Since they started charging, they have used 67 percent fewer bags.
Kiwis use 1.6 billion bags every year – each of which is used for an average of 20 minutes.
We throw 40,000 bags into landfills every hour.
Story looks into what New Zealand should be doing to save the environment from all this plastic waste.
Watch the video for the full Story report.
