Bye-Bye Free Plastic Bags

By Barth Anderson

In March, the Wedge stopped offering free plastic grocery bags at the cash register. Paper bags continue to be free, but customers who don't use paper bags and/or bring their own bags can pay 90 cents for a re-usable plastic bag. The new bags can be used over approximately 800 times each and are recyclable at the end of their useful life.

"We listened to our members- at focus groups, in the customer comment box, on surveys and on the sales floor. More and more members have told us that single-use plastic grocery bags are just not in line with the environmentally-friendly practices they expect from a co-op," said General Manager Lindy Bannister.

Around 100 billion bags end up in American landfills each year, according to Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research agency. Plastic bags make up a huge portion of the North Pacific Garbage Patch, an island of trash roughly twice the size of Texas.

The Wedge will continue to promote our programs that encourage customers to re-use their bags. Green Patches are now worth 10 cents (up from a nickel) and will be given to shoppers who bring their own bags for packing groceries. As the Wedge has done for over a decade, proceeds from the Green Patch program will be donated to the Soo Line Community Garden and Green Institute, every fiscal quarter. Last year, the Wedge donated $7,349.25, or 147,000 fewer plastic bags.

The Wedge will offer other options than the 90 cents bags, too:

• $4.49, little collapsible Chico Bag (a bag in a bag, very convenient for shopping)
• $10.99, cotton canvas bags
• $16.69, 100% cotton bags

To offer some perspective on how many plastic bags even a single-site store like the Wedge uses, our co-op went through 4000+ bags per week in 2007, roughly 25,000 a month. That cost members $3,039 per week for bags that were probably headed for a landfill.

"The Wedge has spent thousands of dollars every year on plastic grocery bags that we give away. But ceasing to do this, we can save our members quite a bit of money, if they join the effort to reuse," Bannister said.