WTF regarding CVS and the $.05 bag charge?

It isn’t CVS; it’s DC law. Every store is required to charge $.05 per bag.

The law was enacted in 2010 to encourage reusable alternatives and reduce the number of empty plastic bags drifting around on the streets and floating in waterways. If my nonscientific observations have any meaning at all, I’d say that the law is effective. I see much less bag litter now than I once did.

Hm. I think it’s a good idea. Consider this: You could have easily carried the things out in your hand. Anymore, when I go to the store just to pick up a couple of things, I don’t use a bag.

I bring a back pack and a duffel bag. I only take bags for meat and fragiles.

Lots of places are doing this. Some are even outlawing plastic bags totally.

What, you think you are entitled to a free bag?

Plastic bags have been illegal here since 2013. They charge 5 cents for the paper ones which isn’t a huge deal. And they don’t seem to really strict about charging. I was at Safeway the other night and thought I could get everything in my backpack but I was just a few items off so they just gave me bag without charge.

And I use the paper bags all the time for trash so it isn’t like I won’t get extra use out of it.

I’m surprised you’re surprised. I haven’t seen that here (CT) yet in big stores, but it’s been talked about in various states where I’ve lived for over 20 years, and so many places actively encourage one to bring their own bags.

Only a nickel? Where I live the mandated (by law, voter approved!) amount is a dime!

You know, they’ve always had the price of the bags (and all overhead) built in to the prices. I like that they’re bringing people’s attention to the sheer, biodegradable waste that they are and are asking if they really want the privilege of contributing to the woes of the planet. I wish they could just quite manufacturing them all together.

I think a great idea would be to make the cost of a bottle deposit go up to 25 cents. It’s been the same (nickel) since the 1970’s. It’s so low that many people don’t bother to recycle plastic bottles. There are a ton of articles on the internet about plastic water bottles and how they are such a big part of garbage and landfills. If the bottle deposit went up to 25 cents, people would be more conscientious about recycling them.

I recycle plastic bottles and no one pays me to.

But for those fools who buy them by the case for no reason, I agree. Up the deposit.

Regular plastic bags are 5 cents here. You can upgrade to heavy duty ones for 25 cents or a dollar, depending on the store. Quite a few stores give you a 2 to 5 cent credit (per bag) for every bag you bring in to pack your purchases in. It’s been like this for so long it seems normal.

It was the same in Germany going back to the early 1970’s, so we’re just a few decades late on this. I can recall unpackaging things in Germany so the extra plastic wouldn’t have to go into the home recycling. Let the stores/manufacturers pay for that.

@Dutchess_III: I collect my bottles and give them to my neighbor/lawn mowing guy who brings them back for money. I’m happy to give them to him and I don’t care about the money because it’s so paltry. However, people everywhere (public festivals, at work, street, etc.) don’t seem to bother, and I am guessing it’s because it’s a lot of work to get a little bit of money. If the deposit were made higher, people might not put them in the garbage. It’s a lot of work to get 20 bottles to make a dollar, but it’s not too hard to get four bottles to make a dollar.

I don’t use plastic water bottles. I find my self recycling other’s people’s.
There was a couple who used to collect my cans, then they stopped.
I tried taking them to the boyscout drop off bin, but they keep moving it around so I just throw them in the recycle bin too.

That’s the kind of things kids need to scrounge for. Gosh, do you remember the Icees (sp) that had the diamond coupons on the side? When you collected 10 of those diamonds you got a free Icee. They were like gold to us.

I think the Target I used to shop in gave 5 or 10 cents back if you brought your own bags. Kind of the same, but feel a little different psychologically I guess. I don’t know if all Targets do it.

@jca When I lived in MI there was a 10 cent bottle deposit, and people really returned their cans and bottles. It worked very well.

They just raised the redemption value for cans and bottles here from 5 to 10 cents on the first of the year. Apparently there was a trigger that if the rate of return dropped below 80% for two consecutive years. They dropped down to about 65% in 2014 and 2015.

I think this is fair. And I am a bit pissed the number got down so low. If you had asked me I would have thought about 90% would be returned. Looks like my gut was way off.

It would be kinda interesting to plot some economic data against the rate that people return their cans and bottles.

I’m sure I remember you asking or commenting on a question about this at least a year ago. You’ve had plenty of time to figure out how to carry things out of a store or make peace with losing 5 cents. It’s a tiny price to pay for having one less bag in the world.

@johnpowell I’ve been wondering about this lately; now that people are more accustomed to recycling (and of course this varies regionally), does a smaller rate of return indicate that people are not recycling? I’m not so sure. It’s hard to quantify these kinds of things when the people who return recyclables may not even be the same people who paid the deposit.

You’re lucky we pay 10 p per bag for the cheapest ones (UK). In South Africa, this charge has been around for some years now around say 5 years.

What is a bag fee? – Flutherin’ September 16, 2013.

What’s going on in DC in September is what I’m really wondering.

~‘s on everything, in good fun

@dappled_leaves The purpose of the return deposit isn’t to track the number of people who actually recycle. It isn’t to keep records. It’s simply to convince them TO recycle. If they don’t, no skin off of the bottle maker’s back. If they do it’s a bit different, a bit less expensive process for the bottle makers.

@dappled_leaves :: I might be a bit biased since I generally live in poor parts of towns. I can put a bag of cans by the dumpster and it will be gone in ten minutes. I didn’t bother returning them until the redemption value doubled. And honestly if there wasn’t a machine at Safeway that I couldn’t just pour the cans into that counts and crushes them and give me a receipt I wouldn’t bother. I will not go into the store and hunt someone down that will count my cans.

But in the more well off part of town you can see people recycling bins that are just full of cans and those eventually are picked up by Sanipac and recycled.

Here is my understanding of how it works. When a store sells a can or bottle redemption is applied as a separate charge. That money gets sent from the store to the OLCC. Then when cans are returned from the store to the OLCC they give a refund back to the store. This is where the numbers come from. So say the OLCC took in a million and only paid out $650K they assume the return rate is 65%.

But cans that you just stick in your recycle bin that get recycled by your waste management company are not counted. So the number that are actually recycled appears to be lower.

And another thing I have noticed that I see people digging through my dumpster for cans. But there will be a nice bag of bottles that could be returned but nobody touches those since they are so heavy. And the microbrew thing here is huge. I wouldn’t be surprised if the improving economy in the last five years has bumped up the number of craft beers being consumed while sales of Keystone Light have fallen. So more bottles, less returns.

@johnpowell The economics of being rewarded for redemptions is part of the economics of the recycling pick franchise in parts of California. In fact, too many people cleaning out cans and bottles from recycling bins put out for pick up played havoc with the garbage franchises in San Francisco.

@johnpowell Yeah, that’s what I mean about it varying regionally. The deposit in – deposit out formula works to estimate recycling as long as anyone is returning the empties, even if they were picked up off the curb from a blue box or whatever. But in areas where there’s no one to go through the bin on the night before pickup, they’d need a different way to come up with that estimate.