It Is in the Bag
added 08/27/08
The volume of packaging material that courses through our business every day can be overwhelming. Recently, though, we have made progress to stem the tide. At the back of the store, a shift toward reusable shipping containers is making a positive impact. At the front end, we’re seeing a steady increase in reusable bag use by shoppers. The ultimate success of these programs will rely on cooperative efforts to keep them going.
This spring the Co-op helped seven local produce growers purchase plastic totes for delivering their produce to our stores. The reusable totes replace wax-coated cardboard boxes normally used for deliveries. The plastic totes program will keep hundreds of wax boxes out of the landfill this growing season and, over time, may save the farmers considerable expense.
We recently switched to a reusable totes program with one of our major distributors, too. This change came in direct response to concerns expressed by staff: United Natural Foods was routinely sending us large cardboard boxes with only one or two small items inside, requiring us to recycle a box that had hardly been used. Upon communicating this concern, we were quickly routed to the company’s Vice President for Sustainable Development who explained that while they do provide cardboard boxes as a courtesy, from a sustainability standpoint they’d rather that their customers enrolled – as we did – in their reusable totes program. Our participation is saving about 500 cardboard boxes per month.
We feel the same way about bags at checkout. While we feel obliged to provide shopping bags for our customers, we’d prefer that you bring your own. Thankfully, an increasing percentage of shoppers do. Between January and May of 2007, the Co-op purchased about 900,000 paper and plastic bags to give to shoppers at checkout. The Co-op purchased almost 200,000 fewer bags during the same period in 2008.
When we switch from disposables (or even recyclables) to reusables, the key factor for improving sustainability is how many times the new container is reused. Making the switch to reusable shipping containers for produce and grocery items has required changes in the way that we operate. We know that switching to reusable shopping bags requires a change in habits for shoppers. We want to help you make the switch, and we want to help you stick with it.
We’ve already taken several steps to encourage reuse. For over twenty years, the Co-op has offered a five-cent credit for bag reuse—first in the form of a punch card and later as a direct credit. We supported Kids for a Cooler Planet and brought Green Bags into our stores. More recently we’ve added “Oops! Did you forget your bags?” reminders at our entrances. Unfortunately, we will still give out close to 1.5 million paper and plastic bags at our checkouts this year.
Incentives
After many years with the five-cent incentive, reuse sat at 16 percent. Green Bags and the Kids for a Cooler Planet campaign provided a huge boost so that now approximately 30 percent of bags leaving Co-op checkouts are reused bags.
We would like to see the bag reuse rate continue to climb. To this end, our staff Sustainability Team asked shoppers what additional incentives they would support. We presented 139 shoppers with the following options:
- a. Raising the bag reuse credit to ten cents.
- b. Charging six or seven cents (the real cost) for every new bag taken at the
checkout.
- c. Making free cardboard boxes more readily available for grocery carryout.
- d. Eliminating plastic bags as an option at the checkout.
- e. Eliminating paper bags as an option at the checkout.
- f. Allowing shoppers to direct their bag reuse credit to a Co-op Sustainability Fund. (Funds could be used to buy solar panels, for example.)
- g. Randomly awarding prizes to shoppers who reuse bags. (Every 1,000th bag reuser wins a gift certificate?)
We learned that a majority of respondents would support options a, b, and g. Being fundamentally different, option b deserves a closer look. Ireland took this route in 2001 and saw a 90 percent reduction in disposable plastic bag use when it imposed a 15-cent tax (Euros) on grocery bags. A 2002 study commissioned by the Australian government predicted that a 15-cent tax (Aus$) would reduce plastic bag use by 75 percent and a 25-cent tax would reduce use by 85 percent. Ashland Food Cooperative in Ashland, Oregon, recently reported that paper and plastic bag usage at their store dropped 80 percent in response to a ten-cent charge for bags.
Forty-eight percent of respondents supported eliminating plastic bags at the checkout; only 20 percent supported eliminating paper, a surprising outcome given that in 2007 shoppers chose plastic over paper 3.82:1. In 2008, the ratio is 3.01:1. We suspect that shoppers perceive paper as the environmental “lesser of two evils.” In fact, our Co-op chose to add plastic bags at the checkout several years ago upon learning that plastic bags have a smaller environmental footprint than paper.
Perhaps it is this combination of factors that has led some American retailers—notably Puget Consumers Co-ops in Seattle and Whole Foods nationwide—to eliminate plastic bags at the checkout but keep paper. It’s tempting to choose this path, but preliminary results at PCC show that it’s only marginally effective, particularly compared to the impact of a bag fee. Similar to our Co-op, in 2005, PCC reported a 15 percent reuse rate with a two-cent reuse incentive. After introducing Green Bags (theirs are purple), reuse climbed to 25 percent. One month after eliminating plastic bags from their checkout lanes, reuse stood at 37 percent.
The Seattle City Council is considering a 20-cent fee on disposable bags. We will watch with great interest to learn about its effect.
We don’t have to wait and see what a bag tax would do to reuse rates at the Co-op. We could simply make shopping bags a retail, rather than a courtesy, item. The cost to shoppers would be about ten cents per bag. A majority of survey respondents support the idea. On the other hand, a handful of shoppers have told me that they would be personally offended if the Co-op began charging for bags. The truth is, we all pay for the bags at the checkout. At present, the cost of those bags is spread over all items in the store. Rather than hide the cost, we could look it straight in the eye. It might be what all of us need in order to stick with our good intentions to reuse bags. And, it would be more consistent with the Co-op’s financial and environmental goals.
Little Green Steps for shoppers
If you forget your reusable bags, take your groceries home in a box! We have cardboard boxes near each checkout for just this purpose. Once you’ve gotten into the habit of reusing bags at the checkout, try reusing containers for Produce and Bulk purchases, too.
What Do You Think?
Have some thoughts about this article? We’d love to hear from you! Please email us your suggestion or question. If you want to check out other ways to communicate with the Co-op online, visit our discussion board.
