Plastic bags from grocery stores get re-used a number of times before becoming landfill. When I get plastic bags at the grocery, I use them on my next shopping trip, or to carry home library books and dvds, and then when they have been used a couple of times and are getting ratty, I use them for trash can liners or give them to my neighbor for her dog walks. If we’re really serious about reducing, what should be banned are the single-use trash bags sold by the box – in fact, I suspect that the trash bag companies are behind the lobbying to ban plastic shopping bags, because if we’re reusing our shopping bags, we aren’t buying their products. They get used exactly once and then go straight to the landfill. At least the grocery bags have a shot at being reused until they are worn out.
Currently in development at the Fortnight lab: live auto-regenerating skin bags. More than a bag, it’s a companion.
55 FTFW
Why doesn’t the Stranger charge?
If you don’t need the money donate it to Green causes.
…which is why the bag tax should have been 5¢ and not 20¢.
(Another case of Seattle having the right idea but fucking itself on the details!)
I recently made a shopping trip to downtown Toronto, and EVERY store I went to was charging 5cents/bag. And those were clothing stores. I haven’t been anywhere in a while that doesn’t charge for bags. Guess it’s a Canadian thing?
I support regressive taxes against the poor, after all they are the ones who make cities so unlivable in parts and make us pay through the nose with their fucked up offspring, so if this charge makes them move the fuck out of Seattle, I vote yes.
The Real Canadian Superstore – which is where this picture was taken – has been selling their own grocery bags for as long as I can remember, at least 10 or 15 years. This is just another way for them to dress up what they’ve been doing all along.
And that’s not all they do. They also insist that you bag your own groceries. The $0.05 per bag is not going to show up as much of anything at all (less than $0.01 per item) on your grocery bill at all. What *does* affect the prices on the shelf significantly is the salaries of the people that would otherwise bag groceries. This they say, has been one way that they keep prices low at TRCS.
Be that as it may, I’d rather pay the extra 5-10% at the till to have my groceries bagged for me. It’s just one reason I don’t go there anymore. Although I’d have to admit, the store I shop at the most now – Buy Low Foods – the tellers are the ones doing the bagging, and they still do it much faster than I can. I personally think it’s more about appearances than actual cost savings. And that’s what these signs are about too: appearing to be environmentally friendly. When any company puts it to their customers to be the environmental stewards that they know they won’t be, they’re just placing the blame outside of the company.
I’m wondering which Vancouver chain this was. Loblaw’s owned “Superstore” and I think their smaller format Extra Foods have both been charging for bags for some time.
The company actually acknowledges they wanted to make a difference for the environment and their customers’ bottom lines.
Haven’t most of the Extra Foods been converted to No Frills – which is even cheaper? You pay for bags (5 cents for reusable plastic or 99 cents for a reusable fabric bag) and you bag your own stuff. They carry most of the Loblaw stuff like President’s Choice but also offer the No Name brand.
They don’t have everything, but you save a ton of money shopping for certain items like bakery, canned goods, and frozen stuff. And their sale items are unbelievable. I’m always able to find staff if I need help so they can’t be saving that much money on labour, right?
@ 14:
loonie: (note the #2 definition)
NOUN:
Informal
1. A Canadian coin worth one dollar.
2. The Canadian dollar.
I can’t believe this has 65 comments.
I get around the whole bag issue by just putting everything in my backpack, which I carry all the time. My back pack is waterproof, copiously sized, and makes carrying heavy things much more comfortable. If I don’t have my backpack on, I’m almost certainly just buying something for immediate consumption.
Convenience is killing the planet and making Americans fat and stupid. I’m all for making people bag their own fucking groceries (seriously, how dumb are you if your an able bodied person and can’t bag groceries?), pay for their bags, and walk out to their own car with them.
This thread smells like Nirvana Fallacy.
Look it up, you damned illiterates.
i just returned from korea and a lot of the grocery stores in seoul charged you for plastic bags. they made packing boxes available at the check out for people to use. i thought it was ingenious!!
i just returned from korea and a lot of the grocery stores in seoul charged you for plastic bags. they made packing boxes available at the check out for people to use. i thought it was ingenious!!
Vancouver is a walking city and plastic bags don’t go well with most fashions. Your just not hip if you carry plastic grocery bags and nobody here wants that. So the plastic bag thing is almost a mute point.
I work at the chain with that policy – it’s the Real Canadian Superstore (loblaws and subsidiaries) – we’ve actually seen a great increase in people brining their own bags amd boxes in the year since we’ve bumped the price up (formerly it was 4 cents).
We also only provide baggage service for the elderly and people with infants, so take it as you may.
Together we can help the enviroment
Paper Stranger now $.25
Plastic bags from grocery stores get re-used a number of times before becoming landfill. When I get plastic bags at the grocery, I use them on my next shopping trip, or to carry home library books and dvds, and then when they have been used a couple of times and are getting ratty, I use them for trash can liners or give them to my neighbor for her dog walks. If we’re really serious about reducing, what should be banned are the single-use trash bags sold by the box – in fact, I suspect that the trash bag companies are behind the lobbying to ban plastic shopping bags, because if we’re reusing our shopping bags, we aren’t buying their products. They get used exactly once and then go straight to the landfill. At least the grocery bags have a shot at being reused until they are worn out.
Currently in development at the Fortnight lab: live auto-regenerating skin bags. More than a bag, it’s a companion.
55 FTFW
Why doesn’t the Stranger charge?
If you don’t need the money donate it to Green causes.
…which is why the bag tax should have been 5¢ and not 20¢.
(Another case of Seattle having the right idea but fucking itself on the details!)
I recently made a shopping trip to downtown Toronto, and EVERY store I went to was charging 5cents/bag. And those were clothing stores. I haven’t been anywhere in a while that doesn’t charge for bags. Guess it’s a Canadian thing?
I support regressive taxes against the poor, after all they are the ones who make cities so unlivable in parts and make us pay through the nose with their fucked up offspring, so if this charge makes them move the fuck out of Seattle, I vote yes.
The Real Canadian Superstore – which is where this picture was taken – has been selling their own grocery bags for as long as I can remember, at least 10 or 15 years. This is just another way for them to dress up what they’ve been doing all along.
And that’s not all they do. They also insist that you bag your own groceries. The $0.05 per bag is not going to show up as much of anything at all (less than $0.01 per item) on your grocery bill at all. What *does* affect the prices on the shelf significantly is the salaries of the people that would otherwise bag groceries. This they say, has been one way that they keep prices low at TRCS.
Be that as it may, I’d rather pay the extra 5-10% at the till to have my groceries bagged for me. It’s just one reason I don’t go there anymore. Although I’d have to admit, the store I shop at the most now – Buy Low Foods – the tellers are the ones doing the bagging, and they still do it much faster than I can. I personally think it’s more about appearances than actual cost savings. And that’s what these signs are about too: appearing to be environmentally friendly. When any company puts it to their customers to be the environmental stewards that they know they won’t be, they’re just placing the blame outside of the company.
I’m wondering which Vancouver chain this was. Loblaw’s owned “Superstore” and I think their smaller format Extra Foods have both been charging for bags for some time.
The company actually acknowledges they wanted to make a difference for the environment and their customers’ bottom lines.
Haven’t most of the Extra Foods been converted to No Frills – which is even cheaper? You pay for bags (5 cents for reusable plastic or 99 cents for a reusable fabric bag) and you bag your own stuff. They carry most of the Loblaw stuff like President’s Choice but also offer the No Name brand.
They don’t have everything, but you save a ton of money shopping for certain items like bakery, canned goods, and frozen stuff. And their sale items are unbelievable. I’m always able to find staff if I need help so they can’t be saving that much money on labour, right?
@ 14:
loonie: (note the #2 definition)
NOUN:
Informal
1. A Canadian coin worth one dollar.
2. The Canadian dollar.
I can’t believe this has 65 comments.
I get around the whole bag issue by just putting everything in my backpack, which I carry all the time. My back pack is waterproof, copiously sized, and makes carrying heavy things much more comfortable. If I don’t have my backpack on, I’m almost certainly just buying something for immediate consumption.
Convenience is killing the planet and making Americans fat and stupid. I’m all for making people bag their own fucking groceries (seriously, how dumb are you if your an able bodied person and can’t bag groceries?), pay for their bags, and walk out to their own car with them.
This thread smells like Nirvana Fallacy.
Look it up, you damned illiterates.
i just returned from korea and a lot of the grocery stores in seoul charged you for plastic bags. they made packing boxes available at the check out for people to use. i thought it was ingenious!!
i just returned from korea and a lot of the grocery stores in seoul charged you for plastic bags. they made packing boxes available at the check out for people to use. i thought it was ingenious!!
Vancouver is a walking city and plastic bags don’t go well with most fashions. Your just not hip if you carry plastic grocery bags and nobody here wants that. So the plastic bag thing is almost a mute point.
I work at the chain with that policy – it’s the Real Canadian Superstore (loblaws and subsidiaries) – we’ve actually seen a great increase in people brining their own bags amd boxes in the year since we’ve bumped the price up (formerly it was 4 cents).
We also only provide baggage service for the elderly and people with infants, so take it as you may.