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How important is a nickel?
When stores give you a few cents off for bringing your own bag, do you care?
Tue, Dec 07 2010 at 12:57 PM
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Photo: heypaul/Flickr
My husband handed me a receipt and a nickel as we were walking out of Target Saturday morning. I had handed him a ChicoBag to use while he made our purchases and I handled another task. For bringing his own bag, he was given a nickel. It made a big impression on him. He’s not one to remember to bring a bag with him when he goes shopping on his own, and he didn’t know that some stores give small rebates for each reusable bag you use.
The incident got me wondering. Does giving a few cents back per reusable bag encourage people to bring their own bags to the store? It’s certainly not a deciding factor for me. I’ve been bringing reusable bags to the store for years now, long before any store in my region instituted the incentive.
For those who aren’t completely committed to reusable bags, is the money an impressive enough gesture to get them to use reusable bags more often? My husband was impressed, and I believe the next time I suggest he grab a bag before heading to the store, he might do it.
It wasn't the money that impressed him; it was the gesture. It was recognition that he had done something a little praiseworthy. That nickel was like a gold star on top of a weekly third-grade spelling test. Remember those gold stars? When you got that gold star at the top of the page, you wanted to earn another gold star the following week.
So what do you think? Is the small rebate a useful symbol of a job well-done? Or am I over-thinking a nickel?
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plastic bags are worth less unless you clean them every time you use them! how many people do this? Anyway it makes no sence
keep your plastic bags clean inside and make sure that you use them over and over or else you may get sick from your recycled bags do we all have time do this?
plastic bags are worth less unless you clean them every time you use them! how many people do this? Anyway it makes no sence
keep your plastic bags clean inside and make sure that you use them over and over or else you may get sick from your recycled bags do we all have time do this?
I tried the idea of using my shirt for the kitchen liner for the garbage can, And your right HB, it is so fun. I used to have drawers full of shirts. Now thanks to you HB, I don't have any left. I'm shirtless in Seattle!
i like the idea of reusable bags, but i also use grocery plastic bags to line the trash can. If you are not using the grocery bags, but buy boxes of plastice bags for liners, who is the winner in this game?
The convenience of having stores provide plastic bags far outweighs the cost and trouble of having to bring my own bags with me. I will never buy or use reusable bags.
I feel sorry for you, then. I guess you are unable to bear the least amount of inconvenience to do the right thing. Selfish and pathetic.
I feel sorry for you, then. I guess you are unable to bear the least amount of inconvenience to do the right thing. Selfish and pathetic.
How hard is it to keep a few reusable bags in the car? Even if you only remember them half the time it makes a difference in your trash volume, or the size of your recycling bins.
I use those plastic bags all the time. What I don't use, I stock pile them up, then bring them back to the store to be recycled. Whats wrong with that? My bags are not going to a landfill, blown down the street, or choking the wild animals.
And, of course, energy to produce them in the first place. If there wasn't as much demand for the bags, we'd save that energy, plus the stores might make a larger profit margin, which is good for the economy.
I think sarah is 100% right. I do the same thing. Less in the garbage, more in recycle bin. Just doing that alone, is a job well done.
Saying that recycling is better than using a reusable bag is a little misguided. Reusing a bag stops the waste cycle unlike recycling which will still produce some waste. I too use brown paper bags for my recycling but I only request one when I'm at the store and use reusable bags for the rest of my groceries. I don't think you can recycling everything and think the problem is solved. That's just a little too much of a simplification to be effective.
While the concept of reusable bags is a good one, I have concerns regarding the lead content and what it may or may not mean long-term. The jury is still out on the use of those bags, but I prefer not to use them until I know for sure that they are safe. In the meantime, some stores have boxes at their doors for plastic bags from any store that they will in turn send to recycling. For the time being, I believe this is the best way to go.
I lived in Germany during the early 90s. Plastic bags when available came at a cost. When shopping on the economy, I always carried a plastic bag in my back pocket. When shopping for groceries, all your pruchases were carried back to your car in the cart and unloaded into a plastic crate for carrying from car to house.
i lived in mexico for many years, and we always took bags to the market because they did not supply bags otherwise. i really like this idea of a container in the car to load the items into. i use a cooler that way now for refrigerated and frozen foods to keep til i get done with all my shopping. since i only shop once a month, there are times when i am not going straight home and need to keep the stuff cold.
I lived in Rwanda for two years. The grocery stores there simply do not have bags. Everyone brings their own.
I've been using reusable bags for many years now. In terms of the nickel, yeah you're overthinking it. A nickel per bag makes absolutely no difference to me. I do it because it is the right and responsible thing to do. I would sooner drop a nickel in the Salvation Army pail than go out of my way to a store that gives them away.
I don't know about your area, but in mine they burn trash and bury the ash. That puts CO2 into the atmosphere. In fact, in most places today trash is burned as land costs a lot of money and people don't want landfills in their county. Instead they burn it and reclaim the metals. Some places use the heat created for various purposes such as generating electricity. That still does not solve the CO2 problem though.
My wife reminds me to carry the reusable bags when I go grocery shopping. Though I refused initially, I do so now regularly and I find it more convenient than the innumerable plastic bags.
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