No More Plastic Bags in Los Angeles: I’m Excited for Forced Change!
The City of Los Angeles is getting rid of plastic bags in all grocery stores and requiring retailers to charge 10 cents per bag for paper bags. The ban was passed in May 2012, but we won’t see an actual end to plastic in the stores until December or January. I am so excited for the economics of bags to finally force me into change. I have at least 10 of those reusable shopping bags and a few are always in my trunk, but I can’t remember the last time I actually used them. It’s just so convenient not to bring them and there is no penalty for me to use the store’s free plastic bags (bonus: free bags for picking up dog poop!). But in a few months, I know I will change my ways as soon as I am charged for that first bag. Even though stores now are giving 5 cent rebates for bringing your own bags, it generally takes a penalty for most consumers to change their ways.
What do you think? Have you changed your behavior lately? Was it because of a penalty or a reward?
I actually think that this is awesome, and am glad to see that you are taking it the same way.. When certain things are found to be bad for society as a whole, and ready alternatives are right there waiting.. Sometimes people need a kick in the rear to initiate change. This is exactly one such kick.
This is fabulous, and I think they should have done this ALL over the world ages ago.
I hope that we can start to make a dent in the Pacific trash vortex after we start reducing our consumption of plastic, but I know that’s a ways off!
I’m glad this happened! I’ve been bringing reusable bags to the store for quite some time, but every once in awhile I’ll forget, so I need to make sure I have one in my car at all times.
I live in Los Angeles and I did not need a law to make changes. Many of the supermarkets we shop at provide an incentive. Paper and plastic bags become a storage problem.
I agree that it is a good move. They’ve been charging 5 cents per bag for most of the major grocery stores for a while over here. It does encourage me to use my reusable bags more, but I like getting the plastic bags to use for garbage. I am surprised they would be charging for the paper bags.
I used to be really good about bringing bags to the store and then stopped for whatever reason. I need to pick this up again. Good call Los Angeles!
In Ottawa (all of Ontario I think) plastic bags are no longer given for free at grocery stores (you have to pay 5 cents for them). While I like the move towards protecting the environment… I used my plastic bags as garbage can liners in my house. Now, I use cloth bags for groceries… but I purchase plastic bags for my garbage cans. In the end, it just costs me more money… while saving the retailers money.
True, I did not think of it like that. I realized I will have to buy the rolls of doggy bags, but they are supposedly more eco-friendly and a lot smaller, so I was OK with it.I don’t know how not to use plastic garbage can liners…garbage in general is out of control and I am creating way too much waste. I need to reduce waste in general!
I’m glad to hear it. I try my best to never use plastic bags here since I hate having a pile at my house and just the guilt of knowing they are bad for the environment.
IKEA has been doing this for a while. Good for the environment and I’m sure businesses will save $ too!
Seattle passed the same law, though it really hasn’t gone into effect yet.
We have a number of the reusable bags, and we used the quite regularly for quite a while. And then we ran out of our stock of plastic bags to pick up dog poop, and started getting plastic bags at the grocery store again.
We have a good supply again, and probably should go back to using our cloth bags.