Oregon has this really screwy law regarding grocery bags. While I'm not totally on board with banning single use plastic grocery bags, I can see the logic and I'm willing to admit that throw-away plastic has become a global problem.
The part that's really screwy is that the grocery stores aren't just banned from single use plastic bags, they are not allowed to roll the cost of the bags they are allowed to use into the cost of doing business column, but instead are required by that law to charge for them as a separate line item at the check out. When this all went down a couple of years ago, I researched and found a place to buy tote bags that were well designed. They are heavy duty burlap with covered rope handles and lined with plastic. They are sturdy enough that they can be filled top to bottom with caned goods and still maintain their integrity, something the single use plastic could never do, and the handles allow you to carry them without it cutting into your hand.
All that so you can get a picture of what happened Saturday when I went grocery shopping. I live 45 minutes from the nearest supper market. I prefer Safeway, mostly because back when I lived in town, it was closest to me. Anyway, with that distance to drive, I tend to stock up on things. One of the things my whole family enjoys is bottled Starbucks Frappuccino Mocha.
With three of us drinking it, it takes about 15 to last the week. The aforementioned bags will hold 15 of them with ease. Since they are in glass bottles, the bag is a bit heavy. I've taught the cashiers at the store that I prefer them all in one bag in spite of that.
So I was checking out and the checker dutifully bagged all 15 in one bag. As I was about to lift it into my cart, the gentleman behind me stepped up and said, "Let me get that for you,"
I was wearing some white capris and a lightweight blouse that, from behind where the gentleman would have seen it, revealed that I had a bra on under it. The whole time I had been chatting with the cashier, in my normal speaking voice. But as I've said before when people see you, they decide in the first 30 seconds whether you're male or female. From behind, with the sides of my hair pulled back to the crown with a large barrette, white capris and a visible bra under a lightweight blouse, he decided I was female and the voice didn't matter to him. He was going to treat me like a gentleman would treat any lady.
I used to like it when I was called ma'am. It validated who I was. This is the second time a white knight has been chivalrous toward me. Those experiences are far more validating than being called ma'am.
Comments
At Least Here in the Bay Area...
...the point of charging separately for bags is that if you bring your own you don't get charged.
Eric
No charge
I have my own bags, so there's no charge. That's exactly why I got the bags. I paid about fifty cents a bag. The original charge for bags was five cents (now eight cents) so in the four and a half years since this nonsense started, at five to eight bags a week, I estimate I've saved upwards of $1500.00 less my initial outlay of $5.00 for the bags.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Safeway Insulated Bags with Zipper
I have three of these bags that Safeway on SW 10th and Jefferson in Portland sold me. They are quite old and fit nicely on my walker or in the Paniers on my E-bike. The bike is getting harder and harder and I don't like locking it up with seedy, dangerous feeling characters. Fentanyl is epidemic now. I sold my car because public transportation is just easier. For me, having a car is at least $400 or more a month. Plus cars are a pain to keep running and driving is dangerous.
I originally stopped driving because I thought I was going blind. It turned out to be cataracts and once I had surgery I can now see better than ever.
Gwen
Bring your own shopping bags
Here in Germany (and also in The Netherlands) the principle “bring your own shopping bags” has been the norm ever since I move here in late 2019. And I understand that this rule was enacted at least 10 years ago. There are absolutely NO free bags of any kind available at the check-outs at any store.
Though at most check-out counters you have the option to buy various grocery bag in different sizes and materials. These include paper bags, cardboard baskets, heavy duty woven plastic bags to fabric|canvas bags. After nearly five years constant use my oldest bags show almost no traces of use. And at €1-2 these reusable bags are a real bargain. Especially compared to the paper bag that priced at €0,50-0,75.
Environmental consciousness is very important here in Germany (and in most of Europa).
single use bags?
For me there is no such thing. What I don't re-use any other way goes in my pocket for dog walks so I don't have to buy as many of those little rolls of bags. O.k., those are single use. Even I am not enough of a tightwad to re-use those bags.
No such thing as "single use"
It started when I was 9 years old (1954). We saved all the paper bags (no plastic in those days) all neatly folded and stack in a cupboard. When we pealed potatoes or other vegies, the bags were split down the seam to the bottom and then to each side, laid on the counter and pealings went into the bag as we pealed. then they were folded to contain the pealings and put in the wet garbage container waiting to be escorted out to the garbage cans.
When I needed to have a book cover, the bags were split until flat and then refolded to make a book cover. Packing tape was not yet available so mailed packages needed to be wrapped and tied with string (a lost art). Paper bags were perfect for small packages. That's only the tip of the ice berg,
Still today, well before they were banned, "single use" plastic bags were used to bag kitty litter; used as waist can liners for waste baskets around the house and for containing any kind of waste that might need containment. I still have two commercially produced devices made to save them. Since they have been banned in the stores, I have to purchase tee-shirt bags online to take their place.
SIDE NOTE: Remember when the introduced the plastic bags? It was said that they were saving the rain forests by not needing wood to produce grocery bags. It was the environmentalists that promoted the plastic bags. Now those same people are up in arms about the use of the product they demanded.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
The Cure
Just worsens the problem. Some stores are going back to paper carry-out bags but are charging for them, so the take-up is minimal. Twenty years ago we could produce canvas shopping bags for about US$ 10 cents per unit and the supermarkets usually sell them for a dollar, so they're cashing in on the problem.
In the meantime, bread and biscuits come encased in plastic, meats from supermarkets are presented in plastic, nearly all bottles (except wines and spirits) are plastic. Getting rid of 'single use' plastic bags was nothing more than a public relations exercise . they were never 'single use' anyway. Most people used them for household garbage. I know I did.
We still have islands of plastic in the oceans, some the size of Texas. It's those we have to get rid of and we need a plastic-eating microbe. If the effort is there that can be achieved. In the 1950s and 60s milk used to come in bottles and were returned next day and we got refunds on empty beer and spirit bottles. Too simple to reinstate those containers or just too lazy.?
I agree
A line from "The Graduate" comes to mind. As the star was at his graduation party, one of the older men gives him advice on what direction his life should take by saying, "Think plastic." Predicting that everything would be in plastic. We now live in that age.
I've seen pictures of those islands of plastic in the ocean. They are not "single use" plastic bags. They are predominately plastic bottles and other containers of various descriptions. The source comes from the age old practice of ships dumping garbage overboard. That practice was fine back in the day when it was all biodegradable. But now, what is biodegradable does and the plastic just floats around on the surface driven by winds and waves to the same spot forming the plastic islands
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
most visible plastic
I regularly drive past a large county landfill. There are plastic bags blowing around everywhere including across the road and onto private property. Because they are so easily blown around they have become the most visible problem though I doubt they are the major portion of the mass of plastics in the landfill. While I re-use the bags I get, I have no problem with the method I use at Aldi's either. I just throw a couple of empty boxes in the back of the car and transfer my purchases to them from the cart. When they get too beat up they can be re-cycled.