To reduce on single use plastic, I believe stores should charge .05 cents per plastic bag you require for items you buy. amirite?

My city does this and tbh nobody notices.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Is your city full of rich people? And also is your city big?

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Midsize, and the problem is that nobody makes a big deal about it, it's just kinda silently tacked on and it's pretty easy to fit maybe $30 of groceries in one plastic bag so we're looking at a 1.5% tax? Most people won't feel that much.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Right so I see. That's where I think maybe raising the price would help. But I mean even then if you want to fit it all into one bag, that's at least reducing it on people who want to use 20. I used to work as a cashier and people could carry out a pack of light bulbs but insisted on a bag. Charge $1 or 5 cents and it may make them think. Depending on how much someone can afford… it may work. But I think it also just comes down to "do you prioritize the climate crisis and earth dying"

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I'll pay the dollar for plastic bags. They rock.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

There is no crisis and the earth is not "dying" lmao

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I recently moved from a place that has these policies to one that doesn't. What I have noticed is that when I bring my own bags I have to tell the cashier before the even scan the first item. They have plastic bags right next to them and no space for me to self bag either. In CA I always bagged my own groceries so I never had to say anything. So I guess its less as much about the money but that I will end up with plastic bags because I didn't put my own bag on the conveyor belt before my groceries. Its been a weird adjustment.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

My city just changed to this at the start of the year and OH BOY DO PEOPLE NOTICE literally can't go anywhere without hearing bitchinf about it.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Haven't they been doing this for years?

by Anonymous 2 years ago

The only store in the area I know that does this is Aldi. I think it should be a nation wide thing across all places in the USA.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

5 cents is nothing. I live paycheck to paycheck and could easily afford a 5 cent per bag charge. Make it 5 dollars per bag and I'd probably switch.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

This guys got bag money

by Anonymous 2 years ago

It's the people that DON'T live paycheck to paycheck that care more about extra fees...

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Is that how it works? I don't live paycheck to paycheck and I couldn't care less about spending a few more bucks at the store

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Haha fair enough, maybe it's just me then. I just recently got out of paycheck to paycheck lifestyle and focusing on all the extra fees and surcharges was one thing I tried to cut out.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Then I must be living even lower than y'all 🤣 because 5 cents did it for me. So let's say every plastic bag is now $1. Would that make a difference?

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Probably not. The convenience of plastic bags is so great that I don't think even a $1 fee per bag would change that for me. $5 would. My ex used reusable totes and I hated them (the totes, not the ex), so my threshold is a bit inflated.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I'm glad it cost so much for you to care about the environment 🙄

by Anonymous 2 years ago

This would be a purely financial decision. The environment wouldn't play a part in it at all. The vast majority of people care far more about their personal financial well being than the environment. They'll pay lip service to going green for the sake of a virtue signal, but to get real change you need to make it a real impact to their pocketbooks. This is the reality, for better or worse.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

It's law in the UK. It works OK.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I'm glad it does. It should be implemented in America. Our environment needs tending to fast

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Where I live, we already have that, and it ranges from 10 cents to 25 cents. It is enough that people will not throw away as many single-use bags, so it is effective. This is evidenced by the hepatitis outbreak that killed over 100 people when the single-use bag ban was implemented.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Bags cost .10 here in cali

by Anonymous 2 years ago

We don't even have single use bags at stores anymore were I live, we all use reusable bags or foldable boxes. No problem

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Most places where I live don't give you plastic bags any more. They give paper bags and they charge 5 cents for each. Many people just use reusable cloth bags now that they take shopping with them.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I think raising the price to $1 per bag would be more effective in reducing plastic usage.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I hate the term "single use plastics" because I tend to use these items multiple times; and I really dislike how they're being phased out. I can use them to carry groceries one day, to carry my lunch to work another day, and then use them as a garbage bag.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

You have the right idea on how plastics should be given multiple lives. In my eyes this would be a single use plastic for most people. But I'm glad you are not just grabbing a bag and then throwing it away as soon as you get home.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

A three-time use plastic item is barely better big guy.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I don't have the study in-front of me, but what motivated me to do this was a comparison of the environmental impact of plastic bags compared to cloth bags. When you factor in the far larger impact of creating a fabric bag, plus the ongoing impact of cleaning the bags regularly to prevent food contamination, a plastic bag was more environmental if you used it twice. The cost of making fabric bags, the water an energy used cleaning the bags, the energy used cleaning the water of the chemicals used to clean the fabric bags, all adds up to a massive footprint that is ignored because people feel like they're doing the right thing.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Seems like this punishes the people who can barely afford groceries. Since paying an extra $0.50 for a trunkload of groceries won't really impact a person who can already afford that.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

How would this punish them? It would encourage everyone to bring something reusable so they don't get charged.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Your right, its not very punishing. Which also kind of defeats the purpose since its cheap and easy to afford.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

So I've seen as I've realized that 5 cents is not the same in other peoples eyes as it was to me. So yes let's raise it to a dollar a bag or $5 as someone said that would make them switch to reusable

by Anonymous 2 years ago

No thanks

by Anonymous 2 years ago

How about you get $.25 off for every bag you bring from home and use. Most places already charge for bags where I live. A quarter for a decent heavy plastic bag… walmart bags are free but cheap crap. But people who shop there might like getting a quarter or three or four back since they're not usually well off.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Nah, I'll continue to use self checkout, input "i used zero bags" and then take as many bags as I want. Customers of stores should not be fined for using the conveyances supplied by those stores. *the stores* should be eating that cost, or supplying more eco-friendly containers.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I hope you choke on the plastic bags the same way sea animals do when all the plastic just gets discarded.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Lol Whatever helps you sleep at night

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Yeah I'll pay 5 cents for the convenience of a plastic bag over paper anyway.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

It's now been raised to $5 a bag.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Double bag it for me

by Anonymous 2 years ago

This would not make anyone buy reusable bags. There is also an argument that the canvas bags they offer arent any better for the environment

by Anonymous 2 years ago

This is already a thing

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I swear this is already a thing

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I hate people who say 0.05 Cents to refer to 5 cents instead of saying 0.05 dollars. 0.05 cents are not even a dollar.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

My city (notably the city and not the county) and a few others implemented it last year. The funny part about it honestly is that they are getting rid of cashiering positions left and right so the majority of the time the burden falls on the customer to input how many bags they use to calculate the correct tax amount to be added. Of course, this leaves at this point even, probably millions of bags taken but unpaid for, so it really doesn't make that big of a difference. The man checking receipts at Walmart isn't checking if you counted the right number of bags anyway so there's no real way to make this actually stick like it would need to. The city where I live in is actually the less financially well-off area and the county is where the people who make more money live at in the biggest numbers. At this point my city is more so taxing the poor for the plastic bags than anyone else.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Taking away cashiering jobs is another issue. Taxing the poor verses the rich isn't an issue. Because anyone can reuse a device to carry something. I phrase it that way because I'm not saying you need an insulated tote to carry groceries. Hell you can carry them in your hands. Or a card board box. And say you do purchase plastic bags, bring them back the next time. The problem is there are very few of us customers wanting to make a change, and if we were to try and put it back on corporations or gov agencies to implement change or policies that wouldn't work. So what… do we let the big people :gov agencies, corporations just do as they always do an pollute the earth, or do us consumers try to help? Or is it just the few consumers who want to make a difference while the rest just make fun of ideas… even if they think so what I can afford the bag it's a luxury. First world problems to need so many single waste plastic

by Anonymous 2 years ago

The burden shouldn't be on the consumer. The grocery stores should find a better alternative to package up the groceries people buy from them.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

How would they do that?

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Your country still uses plastic bags? Canada got rid of ours like several years ago. The only reason we still use plastic trash bags is their super strong, but hemp or bamboo bags could be engineered to be almost as good.

by Anonymous 2 years ago