Does the supermarket in which you usually shop charge you for plastic bags?

No, but they take 10 cents off your purchase for every bag you bring in to use.

There are a couple that charge, Save-a-lot and Aldies.

I don't think they charge people, but Whole Foods does give you a bag credit (or you can donate to a charity) of a nickel if you bring your own. They no longer use plastic bags at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's but I always bring my own paper bag with an old plastic one or two in my backpack should I need them. I always take the bag credit and tell 'em I have my own bag at Trader Joe's and other places.

The one I usually shop at does not, but some of the other ones I go to do.
Doesn't matter to me, as I always bring my own bags (I walk to and from the grocery store - canvas bags that I can put over my shoulder are easier to walk with)

Plastic bags? Charge for them? Man I'd be pissed.

The thin 'disposable' plastic ones are free, but they charge a one-off fee for a heavy duty re-usable plastic one which they will replace free of charge when it wears out. I have not seen a supermarket use paper bags for very many years.

No, bags are free. Though, they do seem to be selling the reusable ones now.
We get the free plastic bags, then bring them back and put them in a big recycle barrel.
I've heard some mixed things about the various plusses and minuses of using paper/plastic or reusable bags.
So, I haven't been all that keen on using the reusable bags, so far.

Yes, through their prices...

So far they are still free, but I suppose when the idiot Greenies get their way, they will charge. We already pay way too much for food, charging for the damn bags to carry the few over priced groceries is too much.

They don't charge and they offer paper and plastic for free.

Most stores in San Francisco aren't allowed to use plastic bags anymore. I'm not entirely sure what the rule is, since there are still plenty of places, like restaurants, that use plastic, but I think grocery stores, at least, have to use paper only. That being said, I almost always bring my own canvas bags, and I usually get a discount of 5 cents per bag. I don't think the stores charge if I use their paper bags, although I suppose technically I'm paying by not getting my 5-cent discount.

No

Yes, and they also sell those recycled plastic woven bags with handles which I have a ton of. I use those for all sorts of things. 'Course, my town also recycles amazing things... like even the clear filmy top you peal back to get to yogurt. Shrinkwrap. We have a consession stand building at our recycle center where everyone brings clothes and takes clothes... for free. I have found some pretty awesome clothes there while recycling and feel good about bringing some. With the weight gain and loss going on with menopause it is a god sent.

> So far they are still free, but I suppose when the idiot Greenies
> get their way, they will charge. We already pay way too much for
> food, charging for the damn bags to carry the few over priced groceries
> is too much.

Well, considering that people use to bring cloth bags and baskets to load their groceries, plastic and paper bags are a modern idea that is wasteful... not a "greenie" idea. I'm a greenie and we are saving your world from going down the toilet.

No, mine offer plastic and paper for free. (two choices, same answer), though it would bother me to pay a fee if I had to.

Every supermarket in Ontario is now obliged by law to charge for bags.

All supermarkets in Hong Kong charge a HK$ .50 levy on plastic bags. (Silly amount...it should be more expensive.) Most people bring their own bags to the store.

July 7, 2009

"The environmental levy scheme on plastic shopping bags will commence on July 7, Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau says. He calls on shoppers to make Hong Kong green by bringing their own bags.



Officiating at the scheme's pre-commencement ceremony at East Point City, Tseung Kwan O today, he said the scheme provides a direct economic incentive to discourage the indiscriminate use of plastic shopping bags.



Under the scheme, registered retailers must charge customers a 50-cent environmental levy for providing a plastic shopping bag with handle. Prescribed retailers include major and chain supermarkets, convenience stores, personal health and beauty stores, and supermarkets inside department stores.



"More and more people in Hong Kong now bring their own shopping bags and use fewer plastic shopping bags as they know more about the importance of the environment to the future of Hong Kong," Mr Yau said.



Under Secretary for the Environment Dr Kitty Poon today also distributed magnets carrying publicity messages to foreign domestic helpers in Central.


The messages on the magnets are printed in Chinese, English, Tagalog, Indonesian and Thai to enable domestic helpers to understand the scheme will start shortly and to encourage them to bring their own shopping bags."

Source: http://news.gov.hk/en/category/environment/090704/...

No: Kroger or Biggs.

Not the one I usually shop at, but there are a few that do.

He kinda likes to live in the toilet.

No extra charge. In fact if you bring your own they will take 3 cents off total bill per bag you brought in and was used.

> He kinda likes to live in the toilet.

:o)

No, but one I occasionally shop at does. I try not go there unless I have some bags of my own in the vehicle.

No, not my usual supermarket (Morrisons). No paper bags here though - I've never understood how you're supposed to carry shopping home in paper bags.

> Plastic bags? Charge for them? Man I'd be pissed.
>
> ...

> No, bags are free. Though, they do seem to be selling the reusable
> ones now.
> We get the free plastic bags, then bring them back and put them in
> a big recycle barrel.
> I've heard some mixed things about the various plusses and minuses
> of using paper/plastic or reusable bags.
> So, I haven't been all that keen on using the reusable bags, so far.

What are the minuses on using recyclable ones?

> So far they are still free, but I suppose when the idiot Greenies
> get their way, they will charge. We already pay way too much for
> food, charging for the damn bags to carry the few over priced groceries
> is too much.

I don't much care about the greenies but I often thought about the quantity (just in our hemisphere, let alone the rest of the planet) of plastic bags used on a daily basis. It's scary after a day of shopping how many bags you brought back that'll just end up in land fill, if it makes it - or may get blown away into a tree, into a river, down a bird's gullet or the plastic continent that's growing in the ocean. Excessive packaging is also something we'd better tend to. I buy something in the grocery store, throw away the packaging as well as the bag I used to carry it home and then use still more plastic wrap to preserve what's left... It's a lot of plastic.

Watch this - food for thought. Our planet is sick and we're contributing to it...
http://stateoftheta.com/48/plastic-continent/

It has been a while since I read about it, so I could have it mixed up. But, a few things I recall... Plastic is actually not toxic or harmful to the environment when it's in a landfill. It's inert. Yes, it takes a while to breakdown, but it's not really doing much harm. There are some issues with wildlife choking on it, but that's more about it not being disposed of properly. The amount of plastic that actually goes into one of those bags is minuscule (they are very thin). So, they don't actually use much oil either. If you recycle the plastic bags (as I do), then that resolves some of these issue anyway.

As for reusable bags, arguments against them might be things like a higher chance of contamination. Lets say a little bacteria get inside one along with a little bit of some food that rubs off. Then, weeks go by... OK, so you could wash them (do people do that?), but then the washing could be criticized as using chemicals/water/etc. I think there are even things to consider with regards to what the reusable bags are made from and how they are made.

Overall, I think it's also likely that these bags have very little effect on our environment and there are other 800lb gorillas in the room we may be ignoring if we focus too much on things like plastic bags. For example, coal power plants (where I think a majority of pollution comes from, by far) and just our growing use of electricity; also water...

My issue with them is the quantity, maybe just one bag uses a small amount of plastic but at the end of my shopping day, when I see how many bags I get; I can't help but think about all the other people who went shopping that day, then add up a week, then a month... you get my point. It's an awful lot of plastic being produced to be thrown away. Producing this quantity of bags is also a pollutant. Any plastic is polluting but we've become so dependant upon it - I don't understand why the petroleum companies are worried about gas free cars; they have so many other ways of polluting our planet!

Oh and, you can always use environment safe products to clean the reusable bag.

I wish they would legalize marijuana though - it makes for a great renewable, natural product. We could have paper bags made from hemp... but the forestry industry made sure that it became illegal and I'm sure the petroleum companies would back them up too.

No, but they have a free groceries lottery for those who do bring their own bags (of which I am one).

Not much plastic maybe, but lots of highly refined oil. I expect it all goes to use though. There's also the energy of the refining.

You do bring up the water thing though. I have no idea if it's worth wasting water to have cleaner recyclables. The other day I caught myself spending minutes trying to scrape the plastic out of a bottle cap to separate recyclable materials.

Fortunately these days they can make hydrogen from the methane composting of dumps, which includes plastics. I think the real issue is what process leaves the least solvents in our water and air.

LJD makes a point though, that you pay for it either way through the food prices. That being the case, it makes more sense to put the burden of that price solely on those who can't bother to bring bags back, and not on everyone.

I have this vague memory of a pie chart showing how oil is used and the amount used for plastics is this tiny sliver compared to the oil we burn (something like 2%).

Yeah, whenever I clean out a peanut butter jar, I wonder if all that effort and water is worth the glass I end up recycling. I suppose "worth" is a fairly subjective thing.

I've grown a bit skeptical of environment assertions over the years. I've seen some cases where objectives were clearly motivated by emotional reactions. There's just a ton of politics involved too, and corporate lobbying; it's all clouded. It seems part of a more general struggle over what is true that our culture seems to be so often trapped in. It's a big turn off. I like having a sense that issues are investigated and a reasonable, practical solution is then proposed and implemented. But, nothing seems like that anymore. Maybe it never was like that. Maybe I'm just older now and see too many shades of gray.

Hawking made some comment a while back about environmentalism being fairly pointless because the universe is always moving toward greater entropy. I don't agree with that sentiment entirely, but I think it does touch upon a certain issue with the whole thing. There is a point at which it is stupid to waste our time on recycling or whatever. We use resources, sustainability if largely a myth and other factors may be more relevant anyway.

On the other side of the coin, I see people all freaked out over plastic bags, but then they buy a new car every 5 years. Or, all those electronic devices we love so much, or those plastic water bottles or even the ubiquitous paper coffee cups with plastic lids. Our culture is dependent on consumerism and yet we also pretend to be "green". The two do not mix well and anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something.

re: water ... There was a good Frontline (PBS) a few months ago about water pollution and it was disturbing. All the consumer chemicals (e.g. shampoo, pharmaceuticals, cleaning fluids) that we put down the drain get mixed together. The EPA limits some chemicals, but has no idea what the effect of the mix might be and it's just too hard a problem to really know. They've found frogs with both male and female sex organs near the water run off.

...

I figure the water and power used in refining resources from scratch must still be far worse than cleaning peanut butter, and it's not like the water is poisoned or leaving the planet.

I doubt very few environmental scientists are examining the big picture. Whethar to conserve water on LA lawns isn't even straight forward (currently almost illegal). If we watered lawns, we'd have cleaner air, need far less air-conditioning with a cooler town, and all that evaporated water would head back to the Colorado river purified for reuse.

It was straight forward to put in dams in the 30's because they couldn't project consequences back then, or at least care to. Things like the world running out of fish or oil were absolutely inconceivable just 60 years ago. Radical changes like bison and deforestation were seen as progressive changes back then, not threats to our existence. I live in a town of 20 million which was six blocks of pueblos with a firehouse just 100 years ago.

I pour 2 l. soda into the same plastic bottles I've had for years, save the 2 l. bottles for home manufacturing (thinking to try making long-bows with them even, cut into spiral strips). I throw out about a gallon of non-recyclable trash every two weeks (aluminized plastic, mostly). I guess I fail as a consumer. I part out the stuff I find in the alley to make bike trailers and such.

The frogs are just a start. I'm considering such an operation myself.

Yeah, it occured to me years ago that products could be engineered with sewer mixing in mind to regulate alkalinity and such. One problem is the antibiotics and hormones recycling their way through our water supply.

Shipping is a great deal of our oil. Jets are incredible waste of 7% of it. {and there are better solutions.} I believe I mentioned my thought that cars should have scheduled disassembly-line recycling deposits towards your next car. As far as cars go though, besides ultralight vehicles, the only available solution is electric street lanes to alleviate batteries. No energy storage i.e. hydrogen comes close to matching that of gasoline in terms of mobile energy density.

I'm just sayin.

I'm just gigglin'...