10 cents/bag surcharge at grocery stores

[wonderdogs]

Are they serious? I am pro-recycling and use the canvas bags myself. I am in favor of offering consumers an incentive to recycle but not charging people who are unable to do so.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/new...rge-suggested/

[Birdbomb]

The commissarry at Nellis has been selling the canvas totes. I bought 10 before christmas and I am now using them. This concept was tried back in the 70's but never took off. I just don't think a $.10 fee fee EACH bag used will be a good idea.

I was talking to a cashier up at Wal-Mart and they are going to try and switch everyone over to using canvas bags too.

[wonderdogs]

I do prefer that my raw meet and anything that could potentially leak be put in a plastic bag. Why should I be charged for that?

[RobinN]

I use to reuse the plastic bags that Whole Foods Market gave me, instead of putting them in the recycle bin. Then my sons GF gave me four WFM bags that I keep in my car. You can use the produce plastic bags for your meat, but you do use far fewer bags when they are the lightweight fabric. They all fold up neatly into one, and fit in the corner of the car. I bet you will find more places giving these away, with their name on them, if we begin using them.
I personally think we need to move in this direction. We will slowly get in the habit to take them in to the pharmacy stores, Target, and dept stores as well. It will take time to get in the habit, but if we want less in our landfills we need to have less in our trash cans.
Another place we can make a dent is with plastic water bottles.

Change is hard but worth it in the end.

[Birdbomb]

The problem with this surcharge, the cost of the bags are already intergrated into the price of the items we buy as operational overhead. We wil be charged TWICE. Unless the reduce overall costs and THEN charge per bag. Who will police this cost? And what about the bags that are so damn thin they have to double and tripple bag an item? What if the bad rips/breaks do they charge YOU for a replacement?

In an effort to reduce land fill, why not make those stupid plastic bottles of water refillable/returnable? They take up more space and take longer to degrrade than bags do.

Want to talk about disposable diapers?

Hitting up just one item isn't enough. They need an overall plan to hit ALL the problem items at once. Nickle and dime-ing people to death over one problem isn't the answer.

[RobinN]

Sorry I just don't go for the all or nothing. I say we do what we can. As I used the cloth diapers 80% of the time and gave myself a break on the other 20%. I don't buy water bottles here at home, but refill one for Rebecca when she skates.

Tell me what is going to make each individual responsible? I can't think of much that the stores can do other than $$$. There have been recycle bins outside our market for ages, and I rarely see people put old bags in them.

We complain of the problem but do nothing about it as consumers.

[renee97]

Our

wonderful

telephone company encourages us to recycle our last years phone books. For a year or two (several years ago now), grocery stores would have recycle bins to bring the phone books for recycling. Now they don't. When I called (tried emailing but could not get through--believe that one!) and spoke to a live human being, she suggested I put the books by the curb and they would pick them up.
Excuse me? I live in a condo in the city of Minneapolis. If I put them by the curb the pages would be all over the neighborhood and no phone company truck is coming near here except to fix some lines. The woman with the phone company did not seem to understand that we in the city do not receive the same service as those, um, other folks in the burbs. So now I throw my phone books in the trash.
The company that collects our trash accepts paper waste (newspapers and the like) and cans, glass jars, and other plastic bottle-type recyclables. Anything else and you can forget it. I recycle what I can. I do have two canvas bags. I try to use them, but considering the quantity of groceries I purchase (every two weeks), I would be lucky if I could get 1/3 of my groceries in the two of them.
R97

[Bernard]

Can I interest you in a very nice canvass bag or two from the Coping With Epilepsy store?



They're very nice!

[RobinN]

Done Deal... thanks for the reminder Mr. B