Whole Foods Eliminates Plastic Bags
by Vicki Tardif
Everyone else seems to be blogging about this, so I will too. Whole Foods has announce that it will no longer offer plastic bags to consumers. The store will still offer paper bags made of 100% recycled paper. Shoppers can also get a 10 cent discount for every reusable bag they bring in to cart their groceries away.
San Francisco banned plastic bags last year and many cities are looking to follow suit. I suspect in both the case of San Franciscans and Whole Foods shoppers, that they are more likely to support these sorts of bans than the population at large. For example, I know that Rush Limbaugh rails against stores oppressing him by stealing his plastic bags.
It will be interesting to see if the movement continues to gather momentum or if it will remain an anomaly found in left-thinking enclaves.
on January 25th, 2008 at 2:34 am
The way that this issue is reported just drives me batty–it exemplifies the worst traits of the press.
First, there’s the need to invent balance. This USA Today story reports on Whole Foods’s decision, and then adds a paragraph about one angry customer. Given Whole Foods’s libertarian leanings (No unions, for example), it wouldn’t surprise me if a whole slew of people were upset, but one guy grumping doesn’t tell me much.
And then there’s the tendency to report the issue as a skirmish in the culture wars. Liberals are forgoing bags in deference to their ideals, but at the risk of their pocketbook–in the SF article you cite, the grocers association warns ominously that Sf residents will have to soon pay more for their groceries. At first blush, there seems something to this characterization. A number of leftish-leaning stores are those that are getting rid of the bags–Trader Joes and (maybe) Whole Foods and Costco and Ikea.
But, then there are other stores that are much more middle of the road, such as Target and Raley’s.
And consumers aren’t seeing the rise in prices–as the grocer’s association had to admit in the USA Today article. Indeed, Raley’s is paying people five cents per bag that they bring in on their own.
There’s also the question of timing. The issue of paper versus plastic has been around for twenty years, and only now are stores adopting the procedure–and not just stores. Entire countries. And not just because of worry about petroleum products, but because the bags cause so much litter. (Apparently, Boston also contemplated banning plastic bags–largely for litter-related issues, it seems, but the movement appears to have gone nowhere. Perhaps someone closer to the issue could explain what happened.)
I wonder if something more isn’t going on, some economic mechanism that is prompting these changes. I wonder, too, if stores aren’t seeing a way that they could profit from this issue–start asking people to bring int heir own bags, even encouraging it, and then start charging people for either paper or plastic bags. I can’t tell from the reporting, though.
on January 25th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Josh, I am not sure what is fueling the movement to ban plastic bags. I wonder if plastic bags are becoming more expensive as petroleum costs rise. I can imagine retailers moving away from them for cost reasons, but explaining the ban as “green” in order to get the positive press for being environmental.
on January 25th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Oh, and Vicki, I realize now that my first line–saying the reporting made me buggy–might have sounded as if it were directed at you. It wasn’t.
I thought about the cost, and it may be, but from what I can tell plastic bags are still significantly cheaper than paper ones.
on January 25th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Josh, I didn’t think you were targeting me, but I can also be a bit obtuse about people being offended by statements I believe to be innocuous. =)
The manufacturing costs are the only reasonable explanation I could think of for the sudden rash of stores eliminating them. (It makes sense to me that municipalities would focus on the litter aspect.)
But then again, I also don’t get some of the fury over bottled water. I absolutely understand why people should drink tap/filtered water at home. To be honest, I drink tap water largely because I do not see why I should pay for something I can get for free. But why are people giving me the gimlet eye when I buy a bottle of water at the movies? Is it really better to buy water that has corn syrup and food coloring just because it’s called Coke?