Saver Queen’s announcement of Loblaws making everyone pay $0.05 for every plastic bag they use has prompted me to write this short post:
(You could buy a really expensive Hermes silk foldable, reusable bag if you want to do it eco-chic for 700 EUR or $1400 USD —>)
Call me naive, but that’s the only solution I see to really stop everyone from using plastic bags.
Charging them $0.05 is too small of an amount for anyone to care about.
I’m probably being a callous, elitist enviro-Nazi bitch to some of your eyes right now, but it’s true. $0.05 is nothing, because it’s too small to be noticeable on any grocery bill.
So, unless you’re really frugal, hate paying what I call “taxes on the stupid” (fees being charged for being stupid), and are scrimping to make ends meet, $0.05 is nothing to you.
It’s not a high enough fee to make people take notice.
Hogwash. That’s right, wash for hogs. *OINK*
If you banned plastic bags completely, and if I ran into the store to pick up some fruit and couldn’t carry them home, I’d be forced to pay $1.00 to buy a reusable cloth bag.
EVERY SINGLE TIME I FORGET A BAG.
That’s going to be enough for me to sit up, take notice, store a cloth bag in my car, in my backpack, or anywhere I may conveniently be (at work?) so that if I pick up groceries, I’ll have a bag ready to use instead of forking over $1.00 every time for each bag I use.
Case in point: Gas.
Prices increased higher than before (but still lower than Europe), and people stopped driving as much.
They started walking, taking the public transportation, carpooling, using less gas in general.
It made a real difference because it hit where people hurt the most – in their pockets.
It might sound stupid (might? okay it will), but I think that the higher the fees for stuff like not bringing a cloth bag, the more people will sit up and take notice because now it’ll cost them $3.00 for 3 reusable bags, and with that kind of stupid tax, they’ll start bringing their cloth bags more diligently until it becomes habit.
Lecturing doesn’t help.
No one wants to be lectured or bitched out for not carrying a cloth bag, or being more environmentally friendly.
Pleading for the cute panda bears and whales doesn’t work.
What works, and always seems to work en masse is money.
Anyway, if you don’t want to ban plastic bags completely, why don’t you switch all your bags over to those biodegradable enviroment-friendly plastic bags that break down in a landfill?
At least you won’t be making people pay $0.05 for something that’ll just end up hurting the environment in the end if they do cave in and buy that plastic bag.
I think higher fees that hit the wallet are the way to go.
Appealing to people’s greener, altruistic Save-the-Whales attitude doesn’t seem to work because they’re all stressed out, tired, cranky and HUNGRY.
Updated notes from comments:
True, you have to wash cloth bags and it releases chemicals in the water…. except I don’t use detergent any longer, and vinegar with lemon juice does the job.
It’s not feces being spread all over the bag (I hope), and you’re washing the bag, what, once every two months or so?
And only if a super ripe tomato decides to commit suicide inside the bag.
Besides, the chemicals being released from washing the bag are the same as if you were to wash the bag with your clothes.. so technically, no EXTRA harm done there.
And chemicals being released could potentially be a lot better (I am not saying it is! I don’t have proof) than all that mass of plastic that is clogging the oceans and landfills that just won’t break down, killing animals, etc.
I also think the best plan is a blanket plan. Ban ALL plastic bags, and make people pay $0.25 for biodegradeable ones.
And if you end up paying $1 each time, and it’s getting expensive and irritating then I say all the better. Your plastic-happy habits will be nipped in the bud as a result.
If this rant didn’t work, then please.. do it for the pandas!!
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
I agree with you in many points.
One important thing I’d like to thing is that we separate our garbage into:
– metals
– plastics
– glass
– paper
– organic
– misc.
We take care of the organic ourselves but the rest goes into color-coded garbage bags. Plastics are blue and I don’t really know what happens to them in the end, but I think it’s recycling, and not being mixed with the other ones and thrown into the ocean where they kill animals. At least I really really hope so. 🙂
P.S. I know California is not a country, I just was typing and forgot to put “The state of” in front.
Wow!
What a response. I didn’t expect such a (fab) slew of comments from everyone.
I’ve read every single comment and I want to respond to a couple.
I love hearing all the examples from countries like the NZ or California that SUCCESSFULLY banned plastic bags.
If everyone does it, no one will lose business, it’s just the rule for that state and no one is going to be favoured or exempted.
I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of charging everyone $0.25 for a biodegradable plastic bag instead of $0.05 for a bad one.
I think that re-using plastic bags is a good thing… but if we could re-use BIOdegradeable plastic bags so that everyone biodegrades, it’d be a lot better.
Also, to the commenter who said about how annoying it’d be to pay $1 each time… that’s the whole point!!! If it’s annoying, and irritating, then bring your own bag and put it in your purse or leave it in your car so that you don’t have to pay the $1. But if you pay it every time, you’re going to get irritated.
I like the bags that fold up into a tiny little thing with a clip.
It’s irritating, but you’ll get used to it.
And if it costs you money, all the better I say. Because you’re going to finally take notice that your plastic-happy habits are hurting the environment, and you’ll carry your own bags from now on.
As for the picking up the poop thing, I haven’t figured out a situation for that yet… but I’m talking about banning bags IN GENERAL and making people buy/pay for plastic biodegradeable bags. It’s not to target dog owners, it’s to make it a general, blanket rule.
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Anna: True, you have to wash cloth bags…. except I don’t use detergent any longer, and vinegar with lemon juice does the job.
It’s not feces being spread all over the bag (I hope), and you’re washing the bag, what, once every two months or so?
And only if a tomato decides to commit suicide inside the bag.
Besides, the chemicals being released from washing the bag are the same as if you were to wash the bag with your clothes,.. so no EXTRA harm done there, and chemicals being released could be a lot better than all the plastic that is clogging the oceans and landfills that just won’t break down.
I love the plastic bags! I always reuse them, for example for packing shoes.
Don’t you need to wash your cloth bags? Doesn’t it waste water and release chemicals into the environment? Is that green?
About your bag thing… There is a hardware store here in NZ, Bunnings (its also in Aussie I think), they don’t give you a bag. Plastic, paper aor anything. You can buy a cloth bag for $3.50 or something though. I just find it really annoying, because, unless you have the forethought to bring a bag, or grab a box off the self, you end up carrying your purchases out the doors in your arms.
I think if environmentalists (wrong word I think) and everyone else want people to stop using plastic, the alternatives need to be cheaper or more accessible. Bunnings won’t give you a used box; you have to take it off the self, remove its contents and put your junk in it.
Some Supermarkets on the other hand, have all their empty boxes at the front so you can grab them instead of bags, it also makes them much easier to put into your car!
… long ramble… sorry.
This is a great idea.
Americans are so dependent on plastic bags, which I really noticed for the first time when I went home for Christmas.
I went to a drugstore to get some hair product. I told the cashier I didn’t need a bag, and she was kind of shocked: “It’ll get wet!” (It was raining.)
Oh the horror. What would I ever do if the plastic bottle holding my favorite hair goop got wet?
For small trips, you don’t even need specialized bags. My everyday bag is huge, and when I go out, I make sure there’s lots of empty space for shopping stops.
For people with families, Germans either buy plastic collapsible crates, or they throw an empty carton from the fresh foods section into their cart (which BTW are much faster to pack than a bunch of plastic bags). It’s not a huge deal here.
Well, I kind of agree with you, but not entirely. I use a canvas grocery bag most of the time, but I live in a house where we have a stockpile of grocery bags under the kitchen sink and we don’t need more ALL the time. So I don’t bring any of them home.
However.
We also reuse all the grocery bags we do bring home. We use them as garbage bags for all the trash cans in our house. We do need some sort of bag to hold the trash, and I’m not sure that it makes much sense to outlaw plastic grocery bags, thus forcing me to pay actual cash for plastic Glad bags instead, you know? Either way, there’s still plastic bags being thrown away.
I have been a dog owner for years, and in all the dog parks near my house, there are *biodegradable* bags in dispensers that dog owners can take for free to clean up after their dogs. I think that this is where the real solution is. Rather than make consumers pay for either plastic grocery bags or premium plastic bags such as Glad to use as garbage bags, instead why not legislate that grocery stores must use only biodegradable bags instead of the ones we have now? Why should the consumers pay the price for an item that we are actually recycling for a completely necessary use? To me, this is just like how the government forced restaurants and food manufacturers to eliminate trans fats from their products. Now grocery stores should be forced to create a grocery bag that is not harmful to the environment.
If that were the case, I think I would probably use my canvas grocery bag about 75% of the time, but take home grocery bags 25% of the time to ensure I have enough bags for trash. And I wouldn’t feel guilty about it anymore. I wouldn’t even mind if they were to charge me, say, 25 cents or so for each biodegradable grocery bag I took.
I love how at MEC most customers don’t even know that they have bags because they hand them out about… NEVER. If you do get a bag there its made from some corn starch type material that is biodegradable. I think stores need to get with it and jump on board with helping the environment.
I don’t know why stores don’t just switch back to paper if they’re going to start charging for plastic bags. Maybe not as durable, but if you’re going to make it an environmental choice, paper breaks down easier than plastic!
by default i always have a pack with me. you know, the collapsable kind that stuffs down to the size of wallet. other than that, we’re pretty lucky down here: San Francisco passed a law that all plastic bags have to be made from corn or other biodegradable form. 😀
-Steve @ fluxlife
I totally agree. I have two cloth bags that I keep in my car so I can go grocery shopping on my way home. I hate the plastic bags. I wish they were banned.
Great post! I totally agree with you. I think in Europe they’ve already begun banning plastic bags altogether (France is the only country specifically coming to mind this second)- as in no reusable bag, no dice, go home.
If you bring your own bag to Sobeys, you get a 3 cent credit for each one 🙂
What a fabulous blog! I love it!
im in agreement with you on this one 🙂
SimplyForties – Trader Joes gives you little coupons your write your name and phone number on if you’ve brought your own reusable bags. The coupons are entered into a grocery $ giveaway. That’s the only time I’ve heard of some sort of benefit from bringing resuable bags. Oh, and of course, Ikea makes you buy reusable bags now. They don’t give you any other option, I think, unless you’ve brought your own.
I’ve been using canvas bags for 4 or 5 years now, and I love it. I hate the household clutter that comes from plastic bags. Additionally, I can typically fit 3-4 plastic bags worth of groceries into one or two canvas bags that are significantly easier on the hands. I completely agree with you that we should ban plastic bags.
Unfortunately, I think the bitching from the constituency will keep any representative from voting for that. People love their free stuff.
i’ve never “thrown away” a plastic bag. i’ve always used them to store shoes, carry lunch, cover bike seat, line small wastebaskets as well as kitchen garbage, and tie things together. what i don’t understand is when ppl get the free plastic bag and then they PAY for plastic can liners. i never buy trashbags.
simply forties, whole foods used to take off $.10 if you used your own bag. i’m not completely sure if they continue to.
I use my cloth bags all the time! I even have some that fold up with snaps to keep them small sized until needed. They fit in my ultra small purse. Also, not sure if you’ve heard, but China banned the use of all plastic bags.
I have been carrying a reusuable bag(s) in my purse for two years now. I love to tell the cashier that I have my own bag and amaze the entire line behind me by pulling out my bags.
One of the grocery stores (Giant) here in the DC area offers a .05 “personal thank you” for every bag a customer brings in whether it is a reusuable bag or a plastic bag. I have figured out that the nickel back over the years have paid for my reusuable bags and then some.
I’m pretty sure several US cities have outright banned plastic bags. I think San Francisco is allowing the “fake” plastic compostable bags only. LA was looking to ban plastic bags too, I’ll have to see if that was implemented. It might just be a ban on free plastic bags, you have to pay for them? I know Santa Monica has banned plastic and styrofoam food containers for example.
haha i know that would work on me if i had to pay $1 for every time i went shopping!
I have used my own canvas bags for so many years that I can’t even remember. Until the last year or so people would look at me like I was just a lunatic when I took them into the store. I remember one clerk even saying, “we do have bags, you know, you don’t have to bring your own”. I told her I liked mine better. And the grocers here do give me $0.05 for each bag.
And the stores already sell reusable bags…so they could start charging you that $1 and give you a reusable bag in return…though it’s possible that reusable bags could become as common as plastic bags, which could be good if everyone uses exactly how many they need, but bad if they start to seem “throwaway”.
I’m from Ireland and now the tax on plastic bags has gone up to 22 cent each. It really has worked, it is so rare to see people buying bags these days because it has become habit to carry a reusable bag. It has also made clothes shops resort to using paper bags again, which look nicer and are at least biodegradable. I live in England now, and it makes me sick to see people sometimes literally putting each of their groceries into individual plastic bags, which are freely distributed at most supermarkets.
I totally agree! I would be happy to use re-usable bags for groceries and shopping, but to me, it seems like a HUGE rip-off to pay $1 for a bag to carry my purchases home in when I can get a plastic bag for free. I’m all for being green, but not when it costs me money.
If they stopped buying plastic bags, and told all their customers that they would provide free reusable bags for a month or so, and then stopped providing bags (or offered them at a price) I would gladly bring my own bag to Target.
I am all for it.
When I was in Prague buying groceries I had to buy a reusable bag because they didn’t offer disposable bags. It was about a dollar and came in handy for the rest of the trip.
Here in the U.S. I keep a supply of bags in my car. Not all stores are into reusable bag. I got into a big argument with a Macy’s clerk who would NOT let me go without putting my single clearance item in a big Macy’s bag. I left the register, put the item in my own bag, put the Macy’s bag down and walked away.
Not only do I support banning non-reusable bags in most stores, I support a $1 per gallon gas tax to build public transit infastructure.
Hooray for the elitist enviro bitch!
I concur!
I have moved over to cloth bags – which are MUCH better!!
I can’t until I get a sewing machine, I can make different kinds!
I worked at a grocery store in high school & college, and when I first started working there they charged $0.05 if you didn't bring your own bags – if you brought plastic bags, that was fine. You wouldn't be charged.
The hardest thing, I found back then, was when you had to add the amount of bags or whatever … do you really want to stand there & count the bags? The other girls would estimate the bag according to the amount of the order before the bags – but that would just mean they're either be charged too much for the bags, or too little.
I think they should just ban them all together. Srsly, now.
Ok – really, there are stores in Canada that have been charging per bag forever, way before it was cool to care about the environment.
Second – I hoard plastic grocery bags. I use them for garbage (we live in an apartment), cat litter mess, and they make great lunch bags for about a week. Don’t forget one of the three R’s is RE-USE! I re-use those puppies to the nth degree before they end up in the garbage.
And thirdly – don’t for a second think Walmart, Safeway, etc. give a shit about the environment… they are just taking advantage of the ultra trendy eco friendly yuppies out there. They aren’t trying to save the planet, they are trying to sell bags!
I totally agree. Everytime I buy some sarnies from M&S and they tell me a carrier bag costs 5p I just nod and don't think anything of it. There is no incentive not to use carrier bags – they were brought in for convenience and at the moment still seem to be the most convenient option.
If they just got rid of them all together people would have no choice but to get a shopping bag….. oooh can just see it now, the return of the 'shopper' – the little thing on wheels my granny used to do her grocery shopping in!
Re-usable bags rock. I have four chico-bags. They are from a company in Northern California, They are as big as shopping bags and when I am not using them they fold up as small as a keychain. I keep them in my purse, so I never have an excuse to use plastic.
I also have a butt load of PC cloth bags and a laundry basket for groceries.
Loblaws does have a handful of stores, 3 I believe, that have NO plastic bags at all.
When I was in Dawson City in October we happened to hit upon the week where the city was handing out – FREE – cloth bags to encourage their use. They’re great (and a pretty blue colour) and I ended up with about 5 of them! All I need to do now is remember to put some into the truck, so I have them when/if needed. 😛
I’m afraid I can’t quite let go of the plastic bags just yet as I have cats and they’re perfect for litter. I think I’m going to have to look into bio-degradable options for that, however, as I really dislike tossing one a day.
There has been talk here about banning plastic bags. my issue is I have a dog and re-use those plastic bags so that people don’t have my dogs mess on the bottom of their shoe or the front of their yard. I don’t mind paying 5 cents a bag because I know I use them.
In Italy, they charge something like .50 Euro for a bag and I remember being annoyed that I was traveling and didn’t have my reusable ones. It’s common practice over there to bring your own bags.
SF has banned plastic bags, I don’t see why every other city/state can’t. Store can use paper bags (still wasteful – but at least biodegradable) and charge customers for them. Those that are frugal will bring their own. It would take time, but I think a large chunk of the population would follow suit.
Well, ok, for the PANDAS. 🙂
I loved that one of my work bags (unfortunately too big and heavy to use for long) had an extra foldable double-layered nylon tote bag inside for random trips to the grocery store after work.
I live just outside of Calgary, and the Superstore here got rid of plastic bags a long time ago, so you either have to buy a reuseable shopping bag for $1, or a green bin for approximately $5, or remember to bring your own.
The Superstores in Calgary are still charging 4 cents per plastic bag, as did the Superstores in Vancouver (I used to work at one over 10 years ago, and they charged for bags back then too!)
When I was in Ireland a few years ago, they charged everyone 5 or 15 cents per bag (no matter how large or small) at all the stores. EVERYONE carried around some sort of carrier bag for groceries, books, etc. Ireland started this because of the problem of too many unrecycled plastic carrier bags being tossed aside and littering the Country.
I bought a couple of reusuable Tesco bags for 1 eruo and used them here on this side of the pond for my groceries and such. The last year, stores supplying re-usable bags became all the rage! For once I was a head of the curve!
I’m right with you. I use my cloth bags everywhere I go. I’ve heard of stores giving a “rebate” if you use your own bags but haven’t come across that anywhere I shop. I’m glad more people are getting on board, but getting their wallets involved would make it happen faster!