"Ophelia" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> "Nancy Young" > wrote in message
> ...
>> On 3/2/2015 10:50 AM, Ophelia wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> "Nancy Young" > wrote
>>
>>>> Well, I've reduced, I try to reuse, but still there's cardboard
>>>> (true even if you shop in a store), and I'm not giving up my
>>>> newspapers and magazines.
>>
>>> We have to pay for those plastic bags that supermarkets used to give
>>> free. 10p each I think. I rarely go without my own shopping bags anyway
>>> so it hasn't affected me yet.
>>
>> I reuse those and if I wind up with too many, the supermarkets are
>> required to take them back for recycling. I don't know how
>> worthwhile that is in the scheme of things.
>>
>> Of course, it would be nice if I'd bring a couple of reusable
>> bags to cut down on the quantity I use. I'm off and on with that.
>
> Do you have to pay for them?

Our stores here will sometimes have a promotion where you can get a free
bag. If you played your cards right when Fred Meyer was giving them away,
you probably could have gotten a lot of them if you had been willing to go
back, again and again, buying only one bag's worth of stuff at once. I did
get one free bag but they are not my favorite kind. They are the cheap
fabric ones that can't feasibly be washed very often because they will fall
apart when you try. I prefer the sturdy, plastic ones that can be hosed out
in the sink.

Albertson's once had a "Pay it forward" campaign where they asked each
shopper to buy a bag for the person behind them. The person ahead of me did
buy me a bag which they tried to force me to take. I did not want the bag.
I told them to give it to the person behind me. They still tried to force
me to take the bag and buy another for the person behind me. Again, not the
kind of bag that I liked and I already had plenty of that kind.

But... Many of the stores will give you a discount for bringing your own
bags. Most give you 5 cents per bag. One store used to give back 30 cents
per bag or at least that is how some would ring it up. Now they have
changed and give you 30 cents back no matter how few or many bags you use.