Remember our discussion about how shoppers in Europe have to bring their own grocery bags? The concept is coming to the United States: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2007/11/26/lawrence.plastic.bag.ban.cnn
EDIT: Crap! I hate how blogger cuts URLs short.
Here's a new link to the same video: http://tinyurl.com/yuc6c8
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I feel as if American's make simple problems a much bigger deal than they truly are. Instead of even providing bags at grociery stores, why don't people just bring their own? When living in Seattle, Washington (a very liberal and environmentally conscious city), my mother and all of our neighbors brought their own cloth bags to the grociery store. Even if people do not have cloth bags, why not recycle and reuse the hundreds of plastic bags people collect over the years?
If grociery stores stop providing bags, consumers will be forced to bring their own. In addition, stores such as Coscos's and Sam's Club reuse cardboard boxes, in which products were shipped to the store in, and do not have bags available for customers. I have yet to hear of any problems through that system. I feel as if there are numerous simple solutions to the grociery bag problem.
Over Thanksgiving break I went to the grocery store with my mom to do all the shopping and there was a display about reusable bags. You were able to buy a reusable grocery bag for something like a dollar and then each time you used it, you saved money on your groceries. I definitely think that grocery bags are a product that produces a large amount of unnecessary waste. It's does not take much more work to reuse a bag than to throw it away. I know all the stores around me have a place to bring your old plastic bags to be recycled, but I'm not sure what they do with them once they collect them.
I agree with trweinb. I would be very interested to see what would happen if grocery stores stopped providing bags. I think people would just get over it and bring their own; maybe it's worth trying.
The problem is that every store would have to get rid of bags together. However, I believe that there will be that one store that realizes it can gain customers from other stores if it keeps its bags. Therefore, federal or state legislation would be necessary...and we all know how long and slow that process is...
I'd be interested to see how consumers, used to the ready availability of plastic and paper bags, would react to a lack of bag provision. I don't think that the replacement of plastic bags with biodegradable bags in such a bad idea. This change will definitely startle the consumer and maybe the additional dime a bag will drive home how essential it is that the consumer realize the extent of the issue. However, a new view brings up a good point that in order for this to work the additional revenue from charging the consumer extra for biodegradable bags must outweigh the potential loss of customers. The chance that such a balance would be struck seems unlikely. A complete ban on bag provision may be a better solution, but only if it is ubiquitous.
I guess my family may need to reconsider reusing plastic bags to pick up after the family dog.
When I was in Europe this summer, bags were provided, but charging people for them provided an incentive for bringing reusable bags. Since we already have a capitalistic society, charging money for grocery bags makes sense to me-it costs money to make them, so why not charge money to people who take them as well? While I agree that capitalism is clearly not always the best model for human rights and the environment, this solution seems like a simple way to help out the environment without all of the "socialist" political taboo.
Post a Comment