When the ACT Government banned single-use plastic bags in 2011, some Canberrans found themselves without a steady supply of free bin bags.

This week's questioner, Colin Mckay, was one of them.

When Colin heard that Coles and Woolworths were going to phase out plastic bags across the country, it made him think about one aspect of the ban that bugs him.

"My question's always been – has the sale of kitchen tidy bags increased as a result of not having plastic bags?"

"We now have to go and buy bags, which we never used to, and speaking to other people about the same thing – they're in the same boat."

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Colin says it's not the cost of the bags that worries him most. "It's the principle," he said.

"I was just curious to know – are we just replacing one problem with another?"

Here's a look at how we're throwing our rubbish away.

The numbers... are actually going down

When the ban came into effect, the ACT Government expected the sale of bin liners to increase by 70 per cent.

Instead, a review of the ban from 2012 found that "average monthly bin liner sales increased around 31 per cent, less than half of the predicted increase."

One possible explanation - Canberrans had a stockpile of plastic bags at home but a second review, published two years later, found that "the sales of bin liners have largely fallen to pre-ban levels."

For retailers, the bin bag category includes everything from small bathroom bin bags to wheelie bin liners. ( ABC News: Sonya Gee )

Our Curious Canberran was keen for more recent figures, so I asked the major supermarkets if they could compare the total sale of bin liners in the ACT before the ban, to now.

For Coles, Woolworths and Aldi, sharing sales data was against company policy.

I was also told that figures alone could be misleading, as they wouldn't account for any stores that opened or closed in that period.

Terry Karkazis, who co-owns three IGA stores in Canberra, agreed to help.

"On a small set of one store, I can tell you that the bin liner sales have gone down in our segment of the market, being the more convenience end of the market," he said.

"Potentially people are purchasing their bin liners from elsewhere."

Terry was citing figures from a colleague's store, from the first quarter of 2011 and 2017.

While the store had seen an increase in overall sales, the purchase of bin liners was down nine per cent.

Recycling and composting can change the make up of household waste, making household bins drier. ( ABC Radio Canberra: Jolene Laverty )

Soon, the ACT Government will have a clearer picture of how Canberrans use their bins.

"We've scheduled an audit [of] kerbside collections that's going to be happening quite soon," said Robbie Ladbrook of ACT NOWaste, which manages waste and recycling collection in the ACT.

In a few weeks, several kerbside bins will be collected, emptied and analysed to give the government an idea of what people are throwing away, and how.

Meet the Canberrans going bag-free

Emma puts her family's waste straight in the bin, washing it out occasionally. ( ABC News: Sonya Gee )

While some Canberrans admitted to stocking up on free bags before the ban, plenty of others said that they didn't use bin liners at all.

Most sorted their rubbish, separating soft plastics and cardboard for recycling, and composting too.

"I've never bought a plastic bag," said Helen Way.

"Out of the rubbish I create, occasionally there'll be a plastic bag and so that just becomes the thing everything else goes in."

Susie, from Canberra's inner-north, takes her food waste to a green bin at work. As for the rest?

"I just tip it out onto newspaper, wrap it up. That's easy enough for me," she said.

South Canberra resident Emma goes one step further. "We don't line it at all," she said of her family's kitchen bin.

"We just empty it out into the bin and then I just hose it out, tip the water on the garden, and wipe it out with a nappy."

It's hard to say whether one approach is better than another, bin liners included.

'The Bin Liner Dilemma', published by the South Australian Government, reviewed four different approaches and found that there was "no clear 'environmental impact-free' solution".

Susie wraps her household waste in old newspapers, and takes compostable food waste to work. ( ABC News: Sonya Gee )

Associate Professor Anne Sharp, from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, has been evaluating the South Australian bag ban that started in 2009.

"What we found is people were looking for new behaviours, and this is one of the unintended happy consequences of the ban that at the same time there were changes being made to the kerbside bin system," she said.

A green organics bin was introduced, for garden and food waste. Anne says it made household garbage, heading to landfill, much drier.

"We know that some people at that point could and did stop using bin liners," she said.

The ACT Government is currently trialling green bins for garden waste in nine suburbs, with plans to introduce them across the territory.

"You're going through the phase that South Australia went through, where the bag ban has an effect but your kerbside system is not consistently taking food discards into the green organics," Anne said.

"There's going to be some behaviours at the moment that might not be the same in three or five years' time."

Lastly, litter versus landfill

One of the goals of the ban was to reduce the availability of plastic bags, some of which went on to become litter in the ACT. ( Flickr: Eric__I_E )

When Colin asked his question, he wanted to know if the plastic bag ban was working if it prompted some Canberrans to increase reliance on bin liners.

I found this explanation, from Associate Professor Anne Sharp, particularly helpful.

"The goal of the ban was to stop these single-use bags from damaging the environment, particularly the marine ecosystem where they tend to end up," she said.

"But when it comes to bin liners – they end up in landfill as a matter of course because they come largely from kerbside collections … not 'in the wild'."

Colin's perspective on the bin liner issue seems to have shifted slightly.

"I was expecting just a yes or no type answer but it's obviously a lot more complicated than that," he said.

Colin conducted his own survey about bin liners on social media, and found that some people made a "super special effort" to separate their rubbish and dispose of it with extra care.

"The average person looks for convenience, and if there's no convenience then what the heck, they'll just do whatever they do to get rid of rubbish."