Plastic bag ban leads to missing shopping baskets

NEW YORK - A country going bag-less in is creating a lot of missing shopping baskets.

New Zealand shoppers are not responding well to how the island is phasing out plastic bags at grocery stores.

Customers are retaliating by stealing shopping baskets from supermarkets to carry their groceries.

Countdown supermarket in Auckland removed single-use plastic bags from its stores in August.  They've now gone from 200 shopping baskets down to less than ten.

A similar ban in Australia has had a violent response.  A survey of 132 grocery store employees there showed that 57 reported verbal and physical abuse from customers after the ban.

New Zealand follow the footsteps of California.  The Golden State banned free single-use plastic bags back in 2016.   New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed a statewide ban on plastic shopping bags earlier this year but the legislature adjourned without taking action on the proposal.