Charging Consumers for Plastic Bag Alternatives...Smart Move?

The new trend in retail shopping is offering shoppers reusable bags. These bags, while retailing anywhere from $1.39 to $15, are supposed to make shoppers opt not to use the conventional plain-old plastic bags. Now, I’m no genius, but help me understand something: I’m supposed to pay the retail store more money so that the store can claim that it cares about the environment?! Hmm…seems like the store doesn’t REALLY care about the environment. I mean if it truly cared, wouldn’t THE STORE incur the extra cost?

This is my personal problem with this new trend of reusable bags, and I’m sure I am not the only one frustrated by this new upcoming trend. I can certainly understand stores that want to advertise their environmental awareness to their customers, but it seems kind of ironic to have to make them pay for it. I mean, it’s kind of like retailers charging their customers extra for merchandise that hasn’t been produced as a result of child-labor, and then claiming that their store is socially conscious about abolishing child-labor; “If you want the child-labor shoes it’ll cost you X but if you want the non-child-labor produced ones that’ll cost you 2X.” Does that seem like something that would “fly” with shoppers today?

I like the very different approach that the Swedish furniture giant IKEA employs; it charges its consumers an extra 5 cents per plastic bag, donating their proceeds to the American Forests conservation program. Some retailers, such as Whole Foods, discount their shoppers’ bill if they bring their own bags. I like both lines of thinking, because it caters to a win-win-win for all sides: consumer, store promotion, Earth.

Frankly, I don’t think charging for plastic bags will help, nor is it the right way to go. Fighting against is never good. Going along with is always good, only doing it in a manner which benefits all. Biodegradable plastic bags are exactly that solution. They allow the consumers to maintain their previous manner of shopping AND they are not harmful to the environment in any way. Since they are made from plant derivatives, they actually get devoured and feasted upon by microbes and micro-organisms, and in a reasonable time – around 1-2 years, versus the regular plastic bags which stay around for hundreds and even thousands of years.

Many businesses are gradually switching to biodegradable plastic bags, since they allow them to be perceived as eco-friendly and they are actually doing good to the environment.