Will Ikea shoppers complain about paying a nickel for plastic bags?

Tomma Clocker won't. She was born in Germany, where bags now cost about $1. "In Europe, you always bring your bags," said Clocker as she shopped at Ikea in College Park. "Americans don't because they are not as environmentally aware, because of the size of this country. In Europe, people live closer together and in smaller places. Much more consideration is given to how you impact your neighbor, on the inside of your home and on the outside." (Washington Post)

Comments

I always bring my bags with me to the grocery store, and it seems to me that the employees there don't know the reason why it's done because I always end up leaving with more than I came with no matter how many I brought with me.

[That Queer Expatriate]

Two points-- first grocery sacks in Germany don't cost $1 each, they cost more like 20 US cents each for bags that are stronger and better made than the flimsy crap plastic bags used by grocery stores in the USA. If you want to spend more than a buck, you can get really good, really strong, long lasting plastic bags. That said the 20 cent bags last a long time and, once they wear out, are often replaced for free by the stores.

Secondly, it is a bit ironic that a company famous for selling cheap disposable furniture claims that it is going to reduce waste by charging people for plastic bags. They would help the environment a whole lot more if they made higher quality furniture that lasted. Ikea in Germany is usually bought by college students-- cheap crap to use for a couple of years before they can afford real furniture. It's rare to find Ikea furniture that survives more than a couple of years and more than one owner. Their disposable furiture certainly adds more the the dumps of the world than a few plastic bags.

[Joe]

Bad math?

70 million bags * $0.05 each = $3.5 mil.
1/2 the proceeds = $1.75 mil.

How does that work out to $7mil for American Forests?

Oh -- but I'd have to disagree with That Queer Expatriate -- Although Ikea does sell quite a bit of what we refer to as 'college furniture' (pressboard, which you're lucky if it survives for 4 years), they also have a range of solid wood items that don't have those issues.

[billy]

So Queer Exp if you can't solve all the world's environmental problems, why try to solve a few? Is that the attitude? Ikea's cheap furniture serves a need....if they started selling expensive solid wood furniture someone else would just fill the need for cheap "college furniture". I applaud them and think ALL stores should charge for bags, even if it's just a few cents it will make a few people at each store not take a bag and multiply that times millions of stores nationwide and you are stopping the waste of millions of bags per day. A small drop in the pond?....yes, but still a drop.

[Amy Alkon]

Regarding Ikea's "cheap disposable furniture," the prices meant that, at my most struggling writer, when I lived in New York, I could bring pretty nice looking furniture back, in boxes, on the free Ikea bus, and cab it all to my apartment and put it together. I now live in California -- and I think it's over 10 years since I bought it -- and that furniture is still holding up and looking nice.

Furthermore, I use bags I got at reusablebags.com at the grocery store (have for a few years) and drive a Honda Insight hybrid. My feeling is, why have a bigger footprint on the environment than necessary. My friend Darcy drives a new VW Bug that runs on used vegetable oil. Had that been available when I bought my car I would've bought that instead.

[Boynamedsue]

On average americans use about 60,000 plastic bags every five seconds. Its insane at delis and small stores where there is no goddamn reason to have the soda and candy bar you bought placed in a bag when you're going to have consumed them both within five minutes anyways. anything to make someone stop and consider when something is, or is not necissary, is fine by me.

i bought a pack of gum one time at the store and they wanted to bag it for me. i was like no i can put it in my purse it isn't bad.

vegetable oil run cars are custom jobs. you could have gotten any car you wanted and converted it to vegetable oil.

those cars stink literally.

i want the escape hybrid but it costs 5 grand more - dang!

[Rom]

"i want the escape hybrid but it costs 5 grand more"

...and I think a couple of weeks ago, abc news, reported that most hybrid cars dont give anywhere near the mileage they claim to.

[Swangirl]

Wow, you can buy a nickel bag at Ikea for five cents? That's a bargain! (waiting for groans)

It's also nice to know that the Blue Man Group moonlights when they're not in Vegas.

[mt2fla]

As long as we're at it... can we also charge for shopping carts with a refund available upon return? There is a special place in hell for people who abandon shopping carts in parking lots.

[Jon]

Don't they already do this in Canada? Charge a quarter to get a cart, which you then get back when you return it. There are far, far fewer carts left in the parking lot that way. I seem to recall they also charged 10 cents a bag at some grocery stores. It's been a while since I was there though, so maybe someone can tell me if it's still going on?

(It was on the West coast that I saw this.)

Come to Maine and get free bags unless you shop at Save A lot which you can have a free box to stick stuff in.

[Morgan]

"There is a special place in hell for people who abandon shopping carts in parking lots."

There are people employed by supermarkets whose job it is to retrieve the carts from the parking lot. Charging to use a cart has nothing to do with helping the environment, and everything to do with eliminating jobs and saving the store money. I would never shop at a store that had such a policy. Sounds like something retarded that would be thought of in Canada.

Also, you can't just convert any car to run on used vegetable oil. It has to be a diesel, and imho the smell of burning cooking oil smells a whole hell of a lot better than the smell of burning diesel. It tends to smell just like whatever food the oil was used to cook.....mmmmmm french fries.

The people that bring their own bags to the store are probably buying trash bags.

[Me]

Morgan, you're correct that people are employed to retrieve those carts, but the problem many of us have is with carts left in parking spaces. That is just plain lazy and inconsiderate. At least put it in the cart thingy.

[WZ]

My ex and I used to leave carts in the lot and not in a corral in select places that didn't see fit to place a cart corral anywhere near the handicapped spaces (where my ex parked).
But we left them off to the side like all the other handicapped people. If we'd all organized we prolly could have pissed someone off enough to fix the cart corral issue.
It's not that big of a deal to me anymore, I have a tag for my son to park there, but my health has improved enough that walking halfway back the parking lot to put the cart away isn't agonizing anymore.

The quarter deposit for a shopping cart has nothing to do with returning the cart to the store. It has to do with not having the shopping cart leave the property. Food Maxx in San Pablo, CA has a device with a chain on it. You put a quarter in it to release it from the rack of shopping carts. When you are finished with the cart, you return in to a cart rack, which they have placed in the parking lot. Insert the chain from the other cart and your quarter is released. The lot jockey still has to go shag carts.

Me, I agree with you 99%. My 1% peeve is that people will walk from their cars to the store to get a cart, while passing several carts either left in stalls or the "cart thingy". Why can't the lazy jack off artists (oh dear, I just name called) pick one up in the lot? I usually bring two or three carts in when I walk in, eases my conscience when I leave one out there, although I often walk it back to the store out of courtesy to others.

In California the handicapped spaces are in front of the store, so to take it to the parking lot corral would be more than actually returning it to the store. Where are the handicapped spaces in Minnesota located?

[Soo]

When I lived in England, the grocery stores there had pound-coin slots on the shopping carts, which you got back if you returned the cart. Keep in mind that a pound was somewhere like $1.75 at the time, so you know I returned my cart each and every time.

My peeve about the bags is two-fold:

1. Double-bagging every time. Is it necessary if all you're putting into the bag is a carton of eggs (I only buy paper cartons, btw) and a loaf of bread?

2. Using a bag for jugs with handles (?!) or just one thing. Case: Two days ago, I bought two boxes of cereal, a bundle of bananas and a package of bacon. I came home with 4 plastic bags. I asked the clerk why she didn't just pack the bananas and bacon together in one bag, the two boxes in one bag, and save 2 bags...

She followed my suggestion, but then was going to just toss the 2 "used" bags into the trash. I took them from her and dropped them into the recycling bin just outside the door.

I hate the plastic bags and shop where they have the paper bags whenever I can. I reuse paper bags to collect my recyclables to set at the curb, and they are cheaper than plastic bags to recycle.

[WZ]

In front across from the store (there's always that driving lane), anonymous, and many places who understand that the point of the handicapped spaces is because some people can't walk that far do place a cart corral right next to the handicapped spaces. Those places rock.
WalMart is one that is spotty about putting the cart corral near the handicapped spaces, ime.

[Lorenzo]

Unfortunately the problem lies in the kind of stores we have ushered into our culture and less with what kind of bags they offer or do not offer....

There was a time not so long ago when the grocery store was about the size of all the other stores on MAIN STREET USA. There were many of them in each town and residents from the local community patronized them.

They all had about 5 or 10 employees that were from the area they were located in. These places couldn't service more then 20 people at a time but that was okay because it was a local thing and time was spent familiarizing yourself with local news,amongst people you knew and saw every day.

The stores were owned by local residents and they owned and paid taxes locally. They employed local residents, paid them fair wages with benefits and those people in turn bought houses locally and paid taxes and in turn bought things from other businesses that did the same.

There was no need for shopping cart corrals because HEY HERES A CONCEPT the employees brought your bags out to the car for you!!!!

Then the whole supermart strip mall/MALL idea came along the Supermarkets and Kmarts and Giant department stores, that were not locally owned, employed people from out of town for minimum wages, gave no benefits and supported the communities they were located in no way what so ever!! The little businesses couldn't compete, they went out of business, strip malls and malls sprang up further disenfranchising the community from the concept of people living where they bought things, the store owners moved away. The community with all the good things that went with it essentially died. That's why so many Main Streets are ghost towns now and crime is rampant in so many towns and cities.

There's a lot more to story but I'll let you figure it out for yourselves???

Essentially Supermarkets and malls created the problems we see with most the small towns that accepted them as part of daily life.

Dont let this happen to your town!!! Bags are the least of your worries then!

[csg]

In the Chicago area the Aldi's stores have the quarter mechanism for the carts and the return area is up by the doors. Even if someone abandons a cart in the lot someone else will pick up the cart to use or return for the quarter.

[c37]

Lorenzo.....I have to say I agree with most of what you said. When I was growing up in Arizona, we had maybe 3 grocery stores in the entire town. 2 were the "mega chains" and the other one was a family owned and operated state wide chain called Basha's (named after the family). For the majority of my life growing up my family always went to Basha's. Yes they had parking lots and cart corrals, but everybody was local, they only had maybe 6 check out stands, a full butcher counter, and the BEST bakery and deli. Everybody knew us by name, we always talked and exchanged pleasantries, and always ran into friends. Going to the grocery store was almost a social event as well as a need based job. The store wasn't huge by today's standards, and they sold their own canvas grocery bags there at the store, ALWAYS asked paper or plastic (never assumed), and had a recycle bin in the store. I now live outside of my home state where the closest grocery store is a Mega Walmart. You don't bask in the scent of fresh baked bread when you walk in (unless its coming from subway -_-), the bakery quality is horrid, there is NO butcher shop, and you can in no way know who all the employees are. Quality has gone down the drain, and mass production has taken its place. Ugh, now I'm sad.

[Sean, Torrington CT]

Ikea furniture is very easy to recycle, so it does not end up in dumps.

[Sean, Torrington CT]

Oh yeah, and AlbertHein in de Nederlands wants 50 eurocents for a bag, but they are pretty nice bags with a heavy bottom and velcro at the top to help keep it closed.

[billy]

"There are people employed by supermarkets whose job it is to retrieve the carts from the parking lot. Charging to use a cart has nothing to do with helping the environment, and everything to do with eliminating jobs and saving the store money".....so Morgan, a parking lot strewn with the empty shopping carts of lazy good for nothing people is good for the environment? The "environment" is more than just air and noise pollution, it is the visible landscape. As far as paying people to collect the carts, actually the same people that you bitch about not being able to find when you are looking for something are the ones that have to go get the carts, they don't hire special cart-getters and I personally would like to see stores charge $1 deposit for a cart so more lazy jerks would bring them back to the store. Because so many people are just self-centered jerks things like bag deposits and cart deposits need to be put in place to force some people to just be plain decent. As far as the store making money....ohhhh those SOB's trying to make money!!! I hate it when people do that!

[V]

Whole Foods and other similar stores usually sell reusable bags-my fiance and I always keep a few of those recycled tire bags from WF in the trunk of the car-they come in handy all the time, not just at the supermarket. We got to a point where we actually asked for paper bagging bc we needed some for our recycling at home! It drives me nuts when they give you ten plastic bags where two would have been sufficient, and it's often true that they will toss them in the trash if you don't head them off quickly enough with the reusable bags at some stores. And there are precious few places where they take the plastic bags for recycling.

The reusable bags at WH cost $1, but we've had some of them for over a year now. Those buggers hold up very well.

In Russia they charge between 1 and about 5 rubles per bag if you don't bring your own. Granted, for an ex-pat, that's only a few cents a bag (1 dollar=roughly 26 rubles right now) but for a Russian who makes on average about $500 a month, it's an incentive to remember to bring your own. I started being more conscientious about bringing them when I lived there, and now it's just a good habit.