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Grocers checking out bag change

Many urge buyers to recycle or bring their own to stores

Rocky Staff And Wire

Published January 23, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Dawn Graziano, left, uses a reusable, recycled plastic bag on Tuesday for the groceries of customer Nicole Gibson, right, at the Whole Foods store in Boulder.

Photo by Marty Caivano / Daily Camera

Dawn Graziano, left, uses a reusable, recycled plastic bag on Tuesday for the groceries of customer Nicole Gibson, right, at the Whole Foods store in Boulder.

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The inevitable question faced by shoppers at the grocery checkout, how to tote their food home, may soon get simpler.

Faced with a growing push in some states and cities to ban or limit the use of plastic bags, many grocers are encouraging consumers to recycle bags or bring their own. At least one, Whole Foods Market, plans to do away with the bags altogether.

But many grocers report that about 90 percent of their shoppers still ask for plastic. And the bag makers, in a billion-dollar industry, oppose bans, calling instead for consumers to reuse or recycle the bags. They favor recent legislation that encourages the recycling of bags but doesn't ban them outright.

Plastic bags have a split personality: They draw shoppers with their durability and light weight, but environmentalists consider them a scourge, tangled in tree branches or swirling in waterways where they can be scarfed up by unsuspecting aquatic creatures.

"Taking that old, familiar checkout question 'Paper or plastic?' to 'What type of reusable bag do you have today?' would be great," said Kate Lowery, a spokeswoman for Whole Foods, which said Tuesday that it will eliminate all plastic bags from its 270 stores in the United States, Canada and Britain by April.

Whole Foods plans to stop offering plastic bags by April 22 - Earth Day - following a trial run at two of its Austin, Texas, stores, Lowery said. Shoppers will be able to get recycled paper bags for no charge, bring their own or buy reusable bags in the store for 99 cents.

About 10,000 reusable bags have been sold at the stores since the change went into effect in December.

Whole Foods' Boulder store has "the highest reuse of bags in the region because of who Boulder is," said Laura Larson, store marketing director for the Boulder outlet.

Whole Foods doesn't expect the plastic-dropping initiative to lose the company any business.

"From a convenience perspective, we might have some people upset," Larson said. "But we are doing everything we can to help with awareness."

Some states and municipalities have tried to curb the use of the bags or keep them from becoming litter. The New York City Council passed a law this month requiring stores to collect and recycle bags, following a similar law in California.

Last year, San Francisco passed the nation's first bag ban, which took effect in November. The only plastic bags now allowed for big grocers are made of compostable material. Similar regulations are being considered by cities nationally, although proposals in places such as Baltimore and Annapolis, Md., foundered last year.

"This issue is not going away. It is not necessarily going to take over the plastic bag market in a year or two, but it is indicative of a real trend," said Allen Hershkowitz, director of the solid waste program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

The Daily Camera contributed to this report.

Comments

  • January 23, 2008

    10:44 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    miki writes:

    I believe the issue is more that the bags are ending up in landfills not just that they are being littered by the consumer. We must all think about our landfills, what goes in them and what we should be doing about them.

  • January 23, 2008

    10:46 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jamesdenver writes:

    In Europe they charge around 25-50 cents per bag. Seems like a logical solution to keep them around, yet offer an incentive to provide your own tote.

    I have a cloth bag, or just use my messenger bag for groceries. The only time I want plastic is if bagging raw chicken or hamburger.

    http://www.futuregringo.com

  • January 23, 2008

    11:18 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    MawnTeeCow writes:

    I like plastic bags. Their strong, light weight, easier to use than those stupid paper bags and they don't rip nearly as easily. But most important I like them because I can let them go in the wind and piss off all of those freakin green fanatics.

  • January 23, 2008

    6:06 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Bag_Monster writes:

    So I take it you don't like single-use bags? What a bunch of Bag Monster Busters! There's a blog for people who want to be entertained and informed about the bag crisis: http://www.BagMonsterBusters.com

    Nobody seems to want Bag Monsters around anymore... It's hard being a Bag Monster in the Age of Bag Bans! I can't even get a job because of convenient reusable ChicoBags.

    For a good laugh (at my expense), and the latest info on Bag Bans with an entertaining twist, go to my blog: http://www.BagMonster.com

    A blog illuminating one Bag Monster's story of freedom and oppression...

  • January 23, 2008

    7:04 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    freethinker07 writes:

    So we can kill trees instead of using oil.