Re: [GreenYes] Re: grocery stores that charge for bags

[Don Hughes <djhughes@mailbox.syr.edu>]

In Syracuse, NY, at least some  of the grocery stores will give you 4cents 
credit if you bring in your own bag.  That provides a small incentive--one 
that might be palatable to grocery stores worried about the perception of 
charging for bags at the checkout.
Don Hughes

444At 04:40 PM 05/22/2002 -0700, Jim Jensen wrote:


>Hi Eric:
>I proposed this idea to a grocery chain in Washington as
>part of the Wastebuster business waste reduction
>demonstration project in 1992. They couldn't believe their
>ears. They wouldn't even consider making the suggestion to
>customers, so that we could test customer feedback. I had
>heard that charging for bags is common in Europe (don't
>know if that's true?), but as long as the competitor down
>the street was giving bags away, they saw free bags as just
>a cost of doing business.
>
>It makes sense to me that in a business with such small
>margins that they wouldn't give away bags. Maybe they
>wouldn't charge full price, but a penny or so, with a
>give-back for people who bring their own to encourage
>reuse. But competition and convention are powerful inertia.
>
>
>Every once in a while, I would bring the idea up again in
>conversation with other grocery managers, but they proved
>quite stubborn on the issue.
>
>Good luck if you are getting some consideration of the idea
>where you are.
>
>Cheers,
>Jim Jensen
>Seattle, WA
>
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