Canadian Super Store started charging for plastic bags and instead of stop using plastic bags I started shopping from Safeway.

/don't try an sell your cost reduction business plans as being environmentally friendly.

//just a rant, I know it's not really related to the article

Not Asinine considering what plastic is made out of. Deal.

2wolves: Not Asinine considering what plastic is made out of. Deal.

Whatever, change it to something that's not made out of plastic. I don't have to pay for that shiat.

What a load of shiat. I only pay a nickel deposit on a 2 liter bottle that has triple the amount of plastic in it than the bag they want me to pay 25 cents on.

TommyymmoT: What a load of shiat. I only pay a nickel deposit on a 2 liter bottle that has triple the amount of plastic in it than the bag they want me to pay 25 cents on.

Yea isn't that a biatch. That's cause that's a deposit and they have to pay you back where in this case, it's a full out ripping off the customer tax for "the sake of environment".

Those bag are worth fraction of pennies.

When I was a kid, I had to pay a nickel deposit on a bottle of coke.

Which sounds trivial, until you remember that the soda itself only cost 12 cents, including tax.

We've had quite a party for the last couple decades. The cleanup is going to be pricey.

The local grocery store near me has a better idea to encourage reusing bags - if you bring your own bags (reused plastic or paper, or any kind of cloth/nylon bag) they take $0.10 off your bill for each bag you use.

Don't they know the environmental stuff was stretched a bit?

no linky, but here:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23064

What if you use your plastic bags to hold your recyclables?


/thats what I use them for

I think I'll go shopping next and take all the plastic wrapping and casings off the items and let them sit on the counter

wait, I do that quite a bit now; I'll start asking for refunds.

So, just ask for paper. Jesus H. Christ. How lazy can one person be???

Anyone watch that 20/20 special showing the horror of plastic?

I've seen huge documentaries... it's absolutely disgusting. Not to mention it's made from, you know, OIL.

/I would wholeheartedly support a ban on all plastic bags. At least paper decomposes.

Quit biatching. I can't remember the last time I was given the option of paper. It's always 2 plastic bags per item.

About friggin' time they started doing this.

Gotta love how this green movement is really going to do nothing more than further nickel and dime everyone in the name of being environmentally friendly.

That's cool, I use paper anyway. They hold a lot more which means fewer trips from the car to the house.

I think $0.25 is a bargain price for something that will last forever. ;-)

Actually, something like this worked surprisingly well in Ireland. Really. It ended up being a matter of principle more than a matter of a few cents. You felt stupid having to pay for the bag when you bought something.

I felt stupid enough times that I started remembering to bring a bag when I was going to the shops to buy a few groceries. I mean beers.

klymen: Canadian Super Store started charging for plastic bags and instead of stop using plastic bags I started shopping from Safeway.

/don't try an sell your cost reduction business plans as being environmentally friendly.

//just a rant, I know it's not really related to the article

What, did you just start shopping at the Stupid Store yesterday? They've been charging for their bags for at least 20 years!

Didn't they foist plastic bags on the consumer when it was all about "saving the forests"? I distinctly recall some chains charging extra for paper with exactly the same reasoning.

Fine. Give me my paper bags back. They hold more stuff, and are generally stronger anyway. Of course, it will all cycle anyway, and they'll tell me the paper bags are ruining the planet, or that the laundry soap I use to wash a cloth bag is polluting our waters. Whatever, California. Keep your reactionary, parinoia driven environmental policies in California, and we'll be cool.

Gyrfalcon: So, just ask for paper. Jesus H. Christ. How lazy can one person be???

Most convenience stores I've seen don't even offer paper, and once this cash cow starts, it's good bet none of them will.

At No Frills in Toronto if you don't ask for a specific number of bags you get dirty looks. They charge like 10 cents a bag. It's not a matter of environmentalism, its so they use less bags.

Gyrfalcon: So, just ask for paper. Jesus H. Christ. How lazy can one person be???

My first job was a bagger for Kroger. It didn't take long for me to realize that plastic was faster and easier than sacking in paper. I ask for plastic for those reasons.

As long as you get it back when you return it.

Why not just bring your own bags? Wouldn't that just be easier?

Perhaps the 30-cent-per-beer-bottle tax will help Californians forget about it.

/link pops

DulceEtDecorumEst: I dont think they should have to pay. It is your right to carry your grocieries in whatever you want. environmentalists are misguided. the earth does just fine when left to its own devices, and people have been using plastic for centuries now, so i dont see what the big deal is. It degrades and becomes part of the ecosystem again anyway. who cares if it kills a few seagulls? so do airplanes, and you dont see anyone talking about banning airplanes.

You come dangerously close to paraphrasing George Carlin's 1992 HBO bit. In fact, you are dancing on the thin line of plagiarism.

Try a new troll, stupid.

b-maz: Why not just bring your own bags? Wouldn't that just be easier?

YOU GODDAMN COMMIE!

b-maz:

Why not just bring your own bags? Wouldn't that just be easier?

That's what I do.

Akai: I think $0.25 is a bargain price for something that will last forever. ;-)

What plastic bags are you using? The ones I get tear if you look at them wrong.

If you're outraged over this you need to get a life. Or at least some perspective. And maybe buy your own bag. Although if the quarter means that much to you I can understand how that may not be an option.

I'll keep the merchandise in my pockets, thanks.

2wolves: Not Asinine considering what plastic is made out of. Deal.

This is asinine, because not all of us just use the bags to get groceries in and then throw them away.

My wife and I continue using plastic grocery bags for months, for anything from carrying baby stuff (bottles, etc) around, crafts, packing/padding for items we put in storage, etc. When we're done with them we recycle them so they don't just end up in a landfill.

If this passes in Washington, I'm going to be pissed. Grocery store markups are high enough they should be footing this bill for the customer. I'll become one of those anal people.. "Are you joking me? You can only fit two things in that bag? Never played tetris before, have you?"

$0.25 a bag? Boo-farking-hoo. Small price for the trashing of the environment you're causing.

And it's a psychological thing, anyway. They could just raise the cost of some groceries by an imperceptible cent and then offer discounts to people choosing paper or no bag. That would be functionally the same thing, but nobody would be biatching about it.

Save us your human neuroses and take some responsibility for the world around you.

Here in Seattle, the mayor has proposed charging $.20 per plastic bag with the same goal. Of course he's the same guy who pisses and moans about the cost of living for the poor. Yet whenever someone asks him about the impact his proposal will have on the poor, he suddenly remembers a meeting he has to go to.

Just more of the same idiotic crap...

DulceEtDecorumEst: I dont think they should have to pay. It is your right to carry your grocieries in whatever you want. environmentalists are misguided. the earth does just fine when left to its own devices, and people have been using plastic for centuries now, so i dont see what the big deal is. It degrades and becomes part of the ecosystem again anyway. who cares if it kills a few seagulls? so do airplanes, and you dont see anyone talking about banning airplanes.

2/10,

Still, this is stupid.

Rising_Zan_Samurai_Gunman: The local grocery store near me has a better idea to encourage reusing bags - if you bring your own bags (reused plastic or paper, or any kind of cloth/nylon bag) they take $0.10 off your bill for each bag you use.

Same for several grocery stores around here, $.05-$.15 off for each bag depending on which store. Canvas totes FTW, they hold more, they dont rip, you can carry more of them, reducing trips up and down the stairs to the car when you live on the second floor, can also hold up to awkward heavy things like milk jugs or cases of soda.

this is why I carry all my groceries in the skulls of my slain enemies.

That's asinine, most environmental scientists will tell you plastic is actually better, since the paper bags are so highly treated that they take just as long to decompose, but the plastic bags take up much less landfill space.

Just use these then, cheaper in the long run anyway (new window)

Half-Price Books in dallas was selling these really great cheap shopping bags, $1 each and I think they turned a profit. I couldn't get anymore last time I was there.

Specifically designed to be full of books, they were well built and the perfect dimensions for about 20 pounds of trade-edition size books. Something significant for this independent book dealer.

I bought up 5 of them and use them all over the place. They don't tear, they hold more, and they roll up really small.

Some stores around here have charged for bags for a few years now. They also sell reusable bags. I keep a good sized laundry basket and a small cooler in the back of my car. When I go through the checkout I just tell the clerk not to bag anything. I wheel the cart out to my car, put the dry stuff in the basket and the produce, dairy and meat in the cooler. In the Summer I put one or two of those blue frozen ice things in the cooler when I leave the house. Screw the government and their "hidden" taxes and other clever cash grab schemes.

I just ask for no bag, or bring my own farking bag.

Fred Meyer's gives you a discount for each of your own bags you use, and Trader Joe's gives you a raffle ticket. Sweet!

I've been wanting paper bags back for ages, people look at me like I said I want to burn down the Amazon. Paper is renewable.

This somehow reminds me of arguing with some PETA nutbar who was ranting about how the only legal fur should be fake fur since it had no environmental impact.

She didn't seem to get that it was made out of oil just like plastic bags.

Anyone that gets plastic bags for normal (planned) shopping trips is a douchebag anyway. Does anyone really think plastic isn't harmful for the environment?

Buy some decent cloth bags (I got 10 of them for $15) and bring those when you go shopping. Even without the environmental issue it seems silly not to own your own bags since cloth bags hold more items, don't fall apart easily, and are super easy to store.

Just get enough plastic bags to knit yourself a larger, more rugged reusable one. I did it. Yeah, it doesn't look all that pretty, but it's just for hauling groceries around, not the crown jewels.

/I get looked at funny when I haul them out of my purse and bag my own groceries
//tired of explaining that I want weight divided between bags because I walk, and I have to carry the groceries home without them ripping through bags

Banning plastic bags wouldn't help deal with oil supplies... this sounds more like something to try and halt waste products since a lot (not all) of people tend to simply toss out the bags after they're home.

This is going to happen with paper bags, though. People will get paper, then toss the bags.

Cashiers could step it up, though, by not packing items so delicately. Seriously, do you need to put 5 items in 4 separate bags when I can do Self-Checkout and easily fit them in 1?

We started taking our own bags, not for the enviromenatl crap, but they just kept pilling up in our house. One set of resuable bags and we've solved that problem.

I don't care that they take 1000 years to decompose, I just don't want them doing so in my house.

ultraholland: I'll keep the merchandise in my pockets, thanks.

That's what *I* do. Plus there's the added bonus of not having to pay for any of the stuff.