People bitching about a nickel.

[Pr0d1gy]

They should charge $5 a bag. There is no reason not to use re-useable bags. Yeah driving to another state over a nickel is stupid but, and Im no bleeding heart tree hugger, there is even less reason to use plastic bags when people can just bring their own.

 

[sdifox]

They should charge $5 a bag. There is no reason not to use re-useable bags. Yeah driving to another state over a nickel is stupid but, and Im no bleeding heart tree hugger, there is even less reason to use plastic bags when people can just bring their own.

I also like supermarkets that let you grab the cardboard boxes. They don't spend as much time dealing with it and you just recycle them when you get home.

 

[PepePeru]

the grocery store we use pays you .10 for each reusable bag you bring in and use for you groceries.

granted, its not much, but i make sure the cashier puts the discount, which is usually .30 or .40 cents.

 

[Phoenix86]

Ahh, businesses passing on cost to consumers. It's a poor tactic, imo. If there's a nickel increase on using the bags, absorb the costs and increase prices on the shelf. Just like every other business cost.

If I buy a bag of chips, do I also pay for the refrigeration for the milk I didn't get? Bet your ass I do.

 

[ElFenix]

Ahh, businesses passing on cost to consumers. It's a poor tactic, imo. If there's a nickel increase on using the bags, absorb the costs and increase prices on the shelf. Just like every other business cost.

If I buy a bag of chips, do I also pay for the refrigeration for the milk I didn't get? Bet your ass I do.

it's a tax levied on the usage of plastic bags. it makes no sense to be part of overhead.

and if the store is subsidizing milk sales through chips, they're doing something wrong.

I think the problem people are having these days is the nickles that EVERYBODY is adding on. Fuel surcharges? Have those gone away since gas prices went down.. nope. Fees on everything. Bank fees.. pay a bill online? Fee.. Pay it in person? Fee.. Buy a house? Fees for the banker scratching his ass.. check.. Pay your taxes with a credit card? Fee. Phone bill? 911 fee, infrastructure fee, education fee.. etc. Need new tires on your car or an oil change? Recycling fee... Its not just government doing it, its EVERYONE. We are being fee'd to death and it needs to stop. The amount of hidden taxes and fees we pay is unbelievable when you actually starting READING your bills.

It needs to stop, and if 5 cents on a grocery bag is going to start that process of people pushing back we'll be better off for it.

thanks ronnie!

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Hey techs is back on P&N! But it looks like this thread was started in OT...

 

[shopbruin]

I like using the reusable bags - the ones I use are very sturdy and I can get a lot more into the bags compared to the plastic ones. I have an easier time carrying them out of the car and up to my apartment.

I still use one plastic bag a week if I'm buying eggs, since I am worried about possible breakage. But it's still better than the 5-7 I used to use a week, plus they tended to double bag a lot.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I don't think this will have the desired effect; all we're going to see is a vast increase in the number of people learning to juggle. "Bag? No thanks, I got this!"

Crusty jugglers...

 

[JeepinEd]

buy real bags. I use canvas bags. I just toss the ones that carried uncooked meats into washer immediately and the rest when they get dirty.

I think I have 20 bags. The 5 cent plastic bag program started June 1, 2009 in Toronto.

Interesting, both bags require resources to manufacture. The plastic bag gets recycled, while the canvas bag needs to be washed. Washing the bag requires resources such as water, soap, electricity, gas and generates waste water. You will most likely want to stick it in the dryer after washing....more electricity + gas.

You can always wrap your meats with plastic bags to avoid leakage, but then that kind of defeats the purpose of not using plastic market bags, doesn't it.

 

[sdifox]

Interesting, both bags require resources to manufacture. The plastic bag gets recycled, while the canvas bag needs to be washed. Washing the bag requires resources such as water, soap, electricity, gas and generates waste water. You will most likely want to stick it in the dryer after washing....more electricity + gas.

You can always wrap your meats with plastic bags to avoid leakage, but then that kind of defeats the purpose of not using plastic market bags, doesn't it.

meat and fish are already in bags. Just need to wash if there is an issue with spillage. I guess I should have been clearer.

And I would not dry grocery bags. That is why I have lots of them.

Plastic bags are not all recycled. Most end up in landfill, which is the problem they are addressing.

 

[StageLeft]

I care. Here in LA in July, they're going to charge 25c for a damn bag. That's f'n retarded. I could care less about stupid reusable bags. I just throw my plastic bags in the recycle can.

Well the best way to control behavior of people if through their wallet. 25 cents is silly, though.

As with most "green" initiatives this is such a fvcking joke it almost defies explanation. I know a guy in Ontario who said he feels like people give him the evil eye if he offers to buy his bags (I think it's all across the province there or at least in his town). I bet these holier than thou c**ts have no problem at all putting on the AC in the summer and keeping their house toasty warm in the winter. Further, the amount of oil used in a single grocery bag is probably equivalent to that needed to drive from one end of the grocery store parking lot to the other.

It's not that bags have zero impact because they don't, but if you're using a recycled hemp bag to carry all your consumer sh*t with its multiple layers of cardboard and foam and plastic anyway I hope you realize what a putz you are if you're congratulating yourself.

 

[nageov3t]

meat and fish are already in bags. Just need to wash if there is an issue with spillage. I guess I should have been clearer.

And I would not dry grocery bags. That is why I have lots of them.

Plastic bags are not all recycled. Most end up in landfill, which is the problem they are addressing.

I can't imagine that five cents per bag is enough to make anyone change their behavior, though it might be the difference between going to grocery store A vs B all else being equal. it's just an extra tax.

 

[Jaskalas]

People bitching about a nickel.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Nickel is just the beginning.

 

[blackangst1]

techs: I guess you wouldnt have a problem with a reduction of pay then? I mean, its only a nickle, right?

 

[Genx87]

Many. Especially those who dont feel they get enough from the state and county.
Eugene was thinking of doing this a few years ago. Oregon has no sales tax and is rated number 47 in the country for public schools. Eugene wanted to improve their school systems with a city income and sales tax. I dunno if it ever happened. I left town for a new job before the issue got resolved.

There arent a whole lot who do. My point to Techs was nearly every tax increase on the local level is regressive.

 

[bruceb]

how about you pay a nickle for extra napkins at mcdonalds. want to use the toilet? how about a dollar.

Some stores, like McD and Burger King will give 1 or 2 sauces with the
chicken nuggets. Extras, you pay for. And there are plenty of places,
especially overseas, where you WILL pay to get into a toilet.

 

[blackangst1]

I think the problem people are having these days is the nickles that EVERYBODY is adding on. Fuel surcharges? Have those gone away since gas prices went down.. nope. Fees on everything. Bank fees.. pay a bill online? Fee.. Pay it in person? Fee.. Buy a house? Fees for the banker scratching his ass.. check.. Pay your taxes with a credit card? Fee. Phone bill? 911 fee, infrastructure fee, education fee.. etc. Need new tires on your car or an oil change? Recycling fee... Its not just government doing it, its EVERYONE. We are being fee'd to death and it needs to stop. The amount of hidden taxes and fees we pay is unbelievable when you actually starting READING your bills.

It needs to stop, and if 5 cents on a grocery bag is going to start that process of people pushing back we'll be better off for it.

Come on man. It's only .05.

Kidding. I agree completely.

 

[MrPickins]

meat and fish are already in bags. Just need to wash if there is an issue with spillage. I guess I should have been clearer.

And I would not dry grocery bags. That is why I have lots of them.

Plastic bags are not all recycled. Most end up in landfill, which is the problem they are addressing.

I don't see the problem with them going into landfills.

Contrary to popular belief, we have plenty of landfill capacity in the US.

 

[Craig234]

The fee is not a store fee but a city fee. So ALL stores have to do it and I THINK they do not get to keep the money?

It would still slightly reduce the store's costs if customers went from bags the store paid for to resusable.

 

[werepossum]

For reference: Those plastic bags were never free. They always cost somebody something. I think that we all got them for free for so many years kinda spoiled us. We do end up paying for them anyway, with the goods we buy. I think if Big Brother wanted to impose a special fee they should have just charged businesses a flat rate based on their average bag use per month.
Then the business could raise the price on all their more expensive items by a penny, and everything would have worked out in the end and nobody would have even known anything about it.

People arent pissed they have to pay 5 cents for a bag. They're pissed they know about it. When the government fucks them up the ass every other day of the year they dont complain. Cuz they dont know (or no longer care). Same deal with the bags. Eventually they will forget about it completely.

This. Even if Marlin is correct that it's not the store but the local government, it's still a very small cost that we can avoid completely if we bring our shopping bags and still enjoy the convenience of plastic bags when needed.

Everything being offered with something "free" only makes me lean toward the Democrat view - that most people are fundamentally stupid.

 

[nickbits]

It would still slightly reduce the store's costs if customers went from bags the store paid for to resusable.

Most big stores have those handy bag dispensers the cashiers use. They are pretty time efficient. If customers bring their own bags they have to fumble around with them, and that will add time to the checkout process. They will need to hire more cashiers to compensate.

 

[nickbits]

My beef with this concept is that the few places I've been that charge you for bags ask you how many you want to buy before everything is bagged. How the *** am I suppose to know how many I need?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

I can't imagine five cents is enough to make a significant number of people switch to reusable bags, but it's probably enough for the grocery stores to see extra profit on.

an average trip to the grocery store for me is 2 bags. I go shopping 2-3 times/week. $.40 per month isn't going to change my habits.

Then they'll keep raising prices. Make the bags 10 cents and more people switch. Make them 25 cents and everybody switches.

 

[StageLeft]

I don't see the problem with them going into landfills.

Contrary to popular belief, we have plenty of landfill capacity in the US.

Whether there is or isn't is irrelevant in this issue anyway.

I buy strong Hefty garbage bags for my trash. I get something like 80 in a box and I'd say that box is about half a cubic foot or 2/3rd. These are large, beefy bags. Compared to the chinsy bags I get my groceries in I'd probably need 1000 of them to take up the same volume. Let's say we go through 500 of those/year I'm using perhaps 1/3rd of a cubic foot of landfill with my plastic bags (assuming I throw them all out; in actual fact I use damn near every one of them on things like kitty litter). Contrast with my overall trash output each week. I average perhaps 75% fill on a large green bin that must be 20 cubic feet, so 52X15 is 780. So then going by these very rough figures my grocery bag use represents 1/2340 of my landfill use, or .042% of it. In fact, that number still seems really high. I must have messed the numbers somewhere 🙂

The great thing about plastic bags, btw, is they compress so well. A bottle, even a plastic one without is cap doesn't compress down perfectly but a plastic bag does.

 

[FoBoT]

i don't care if they build the bag costs into the overhead or if they specifically charge me per bag, either way i want the evil plastic bags so i can take them home and put them in the trash, as i clearly hate the planet and want baby seals to choke on plastic bags