Reusable Grocery Bags Cheaper than Ever!

Today at a Walmart in Northern California I noticed that the price of reusable grocery sacks has dropped to just fifteen cents a piece. Many customers were zoned out and understandably tired (fluorescent lights, huge lines, crying babies), thus not choosing the environmentally friendly option (the checkout guys and gals weren't exactly promoting it) but I think that will change soon. A whole sidewall of precocious Walmart real estate and half of each bag carousel was packed with the bright blue reusable bag option and a huge fifteen cent sign called out to everyone passing through. Fifteen cents is so cheap! Can you name any other item at Walmart that is only fifteen cents?? Not even the candy machines for kids are that cheap.

Now I realize that the Silicon Valley (where I saw the fifteen cent bags) is a clean technology hub in one of the most forward thinking, wealthy and innovative centers of the universe but this is still progress, greenwashing maybe, but progress. Just two weeks ago I was in San Antonio Texas and their Super Walmarts had no such bags or signs of this kind of thinking. Really though, fifteen cents a piece! I believe that sometime in the very near future stores will begin charging for the disposable bags and that will motivate consumers to begin recycling with reusables. Even if they gave the bags away free, I think consumers would begin using them repeatedly because really, who throws away non-disposable items without feeling a little bad? Well, besides my grandparents maybe... and they'll be recycled themselves soon :)

I've got to hand it to Walmart for their card board recycling, advanced energy monitoring systems and the new bag policies being implemented... on the basis of cost savings of course. Whatever motivates it I see us getting closer to the way things were and the way things should be, natural.

Blue light special baby! In the town of Mountain View California and neighboring Palo Alto, styrofoam Jamba Juice cups and plastic grocery sacks are being banned by city lawmakers. Thank you... and really isn't it about time? Will we really think it was all worth it in five years when this is the norm everywhere? I recently suggested reusable bags to an elderly customer in Trader Joe's supermarket (and the staff even chimed in to land the sale) but she was concerned about health issues of reusing a "dirty" bag. For the record, we do have a built in immune system designed to combat "dirt" so I feel like maybe she was a little paranoid. We are all connected to the earth and those crappy disposable bags are unhealthy for all kinds of wildlife that we in turn eat... so actually the unhealthy and "dirty" choice is disposable bags, not reusables.

This conjures up memories of a business case study I did in undergrad about reusable diapers. A company stepped in and started selling disposables in a Latin American country using health as a primary selling point, turns out disposables are way less healthy when you don't have a reliable system of waste management. Oops... let's think full circle here guys. Just like those diapers that killed hundreds of Latin Americans, plastic bags are endangering sea life, birds and ultimately us.