Bag credits? - Page 2

[tygrss]

The Whole Foods here gives 5 cents per bag. I rarely do the grocery shopping so I haven't had a chance to see if other places do it as well.

[Ruthla]

Originally Posted by jessicafairy

At my local Trader Joes it's a monthly raffle for a $25 gift certificate. Definatly better then a handful of nickels (if I ever win it!)

Trader Joe's here offers a bag credit PLUS a chance to enter the raffle. I think the prize is a gift basket of TJ's items that they select, but as I haven't yet won, I'm not sure.

I recently discovered that Shoprite gives 3 cents per plastic bag that gets reused or 7 cents for each cloth bag you use. I could have the numbers wrong, but I think it's great how they offer more money for the cloth bags, because they DO hold more than the plastic ones.

[twin monkeys]

i know a couple of stores by me will give the credit. But I also buy the bags for some of my more mainstream friends as b-day gifts and let them know which stores give credits. Most of the girls i have given them to have relized how convient they are and now use them all the time. I figure if its my way to help out a little bit then so be it. The one store always asks how many bags did you bring this time. And they tell everyone about the bag credit to get people to use less plastic

[tracyhos]

One of our grocery stores does, HyVee. They do 5 cents per reusable bag you bring in.

The Super Target I shop at sells reusable red cloth Target bags, but doesn't do a discount.

Their are other grocery stores around, but those are the 2 I mainly shop at.

[Christine&men]

Well, I very pointedly put my cloth bags on the conveyor belt and when the cashier announces the total I say "Does that include the bag credit?". And I don't correct them if they count three bags as four ().

[PapayaMom]

I asked Wegmans about this and the manager that I talked to said that they discussed it but it is more expensive for them to use the reusable Wegman Brand bag than plastic because it takes the cashiers longer to set up. I couldn't believe that line of crap.

He also said that Wegmans goes through 1 million plastic bags a day, I thought that was sickening...

[Christine&men]

Originally Posted by PapayaMom

I asked Wegmans about this and the manager that I talked to said that they discussed it but it is more expensive for them to use the reusable Wegman Brand bag than plastic because it takes the cashiers longer to set up. I couldn't believe that line of crap.

He also said that Wegmans goes through 1 million plastic bags a day, I thought that was sickening...

I wonder that he didn't say that they have those bins where customers can recycle them.... And that of course would minimize their use of 1 million bags a day...

Nah, that is really not very smart of them (not to say stupid).

And yes, it might take a wee bit longer but hey, they were surprised to see my German bag (it's about to die though ...

[VeganCupcake]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

IMO, charging for disposable bags would be a lot more effective at getting others to reuse bags, but the bag credit is probably easier to implement for a store that already gives out "free" bags.

: A 5 cent rebate is not going to get me to use a canvas bag if I don't already want to. When I was a teenager, though, the Canadian chain Superstore started charging 5 cents for bags, and my mom became fanatical about not buying them. We'd stick things in our pockets (after we paid for them) to avoid "buying" bags Mom thought we didn't really need!

Originally Posted by PapayaMom

I asked Wegmans about this and the manager that I talked to said that they discussed it but it is more expensive for them to use the reusable Wegman Brand bag than plastic because it takes the cashiers longer to set up. I couldn't believe that line of crap.

I have several bags which are shaped exactly like the plastic store bags, and it always astonishes me that cashiers don't figure out that you can put them on the plastic bag holder-upper and then fill them *just like a plastic bag*. Or those other kinds that have flat bottoms and stand up by themselves--you can do the same with them. In my experience, cashiers tend to just flop the bag down on the counter in a heap and try to fill it that way. No wonder it takes longer--filling a plastic bag that way would take plenty long, too.

[emelsea]

Originally Posted by MrsMike

In my area, we have four that offer credits. There may be more, but these are the ones I know of:
Weiss - $0.3 cents
Whole Foods - $0.5 cents
Redners - $0.5 cents
Genaurdi's (a Safeway company) - $0.5 cents.

We must live in the same area. I didn't know that Redners gave a bag credit. I wonder if it varies from store to store?

[lilyka]

that line of crap about plastic costing less is nonesense. Bags were one of our biggest expenses at our grocery stire and it save a ton when you bring your own. I don't care if they give me discount but don't tell me my reusable bags cost more. and further more even if they did I don't care.

[happyhats]

slight hijack, but you know what I don't get? All the stores around here are offerering the new canvas bags (they don't do credits, but then again they only started the reusable bags about a month or two ago). BUT. Whenever I bring in my canvas bags they look at me like I have three eyes. This isn't because there's a policy against canvas bags...they just don't seem to understand the concept at all. I often get ignored and then have to take my stuff out of their bags or I have to remind them like three times, or at least I often get the evil eye. But how can you be selling them if you don't even know how to use them??? What else are people buying them for??? Sorry, rant over.

[GruppieGirl]

People are not going to change their habits until stores start CHARGING 5 cents for plastic bags.

Yes, it's nice to get 5 cents back at Stop and Shop or Whole Foods, but it makes more of an impact if we have to shell out our hard-earned money. Even if it's 30 cents...people will notice and change.

In Ireland, they have started charging for plastic shopping bags. Their use has gone down something like 97%. :


Does anyone else love the sign at Whole Foods that states how many bags and how much money was saved the previous week by customers bringing in their bags? Yesterday I was over there and the number of bags saved was over 7,000. :