Charge 25 cents for bags and put the money back into sanitation or recycling or some crap. 25 cents is enough to piss people off but not excessive if u don't have a bag with u. The bags they sell could be made more reusable. There's nothing wrong with plastic bags if you reuse them, and people aren't gonna do that unless you piss them off by charging 25 cents. It works in copenhagen. 5 cents is too little, it needs to be at least 15 cents I think. Also the price of the bag has to be ADDED to your total very noticeably (bag should be rung up like any other item), instead of deducting a savings since that has more psych effect. Otherwise it just feels like some kinda tax, the point of havin that price there and need to ring up a separate item is to piss people off.

Plastic is better than cloth bags because cloth is not water resistant and cloth can stain etc. They arent as durable, but decently thick ones can be re-used.

Also if people are mad about excess plastic bottles not being recycled, add 25cent and 50 cent bottle deposits with easy auto recycling machines for you to get back your deposit easily. Also make the plastic on the bottles thicker so u can re-use them more times. Let bums do more of our recycling for us if someone chooses to throw the bottles out. Monster bottle deposits are the only way ur gonna get serious recycling compliance.

Every time I go to Whole Foods for a box of biscotti, I keep my eyes open for an "I Am Not a Plastic Bag", and I have never seen one! Unless the shoppers are hiding them under all the plastic bags they are carrying!

I worked in a super market upstate (Price Chopper) that would give people .05 cents off their order per bag they brought in to pack their order in (meaning, if they brought in a bunch of plastic bags for the recycle bin, they didn't get anything, but if they checked out and packed their groceries in the same bags, you'd get a credit for each bag used).

They were doing this 10 years ago... ahead of the curve, I guess.

china agrees: clicky

The bags should be part of our citywide recycling campaign. They are derived from oil so there must be some way of getting them back there?

I can carry six or more of these bags back from the grocery store comfortably split between two hands. In the old paper days it was one bag which needed both hands.

For X-Mas, the children I'm never having all got 600 packs of Hefty drawstring garbage bags from Sam's club, lead ingots and loaded Star/Tac .380's. It was the best X-mas ever!

Oh man, I'm a dunce. My sarcasm meter is busted!

LONG DAY (and it's only 2).

I really don't see how a bag surcharge is going to making a difference. Let's face it, people aren't going to balk much about 10 cents being tacked on to their purchase @ the end... on top of all the other overcharges we endure in the city.

Right now Whole Foods refunds .10 per purchase if you tell them you don't need a bag. Even though it's only 10 cents, it' pyschological reinforcent of "saving," on each shopping trip.

But I think the best way to save $ and plastic is to bring a couple of tote bags (recycled or purchased from one of the sites above) to Chinatown for most core purchases.

Thank goddess for Chinatown, my food-supply salvation.

You have to be careful though, because everyone is ridiculously eager to give you a plastic bag for ANYTHING in Chinatown, and may think you're nuts to refuse. They are not the most environmetally aware culture around - duh.

Emily Dickinson, you're hilarious, btw.

Yeah, gee, I hope she's joking.

^^^ Someone needs to bring her sarcasm meter into the shop for servicing.

"The best way to reuse plastic bags is to let your young children play with them! They make wonderful and amusing toys. A great favorite of all children is playing 'Spaceman', using a plastic bag as a make believe Flash Gordon style helmet!"

Emilydickenson, I hope you're joking. Kids putting plastic bags over their heads is a fast route to suffocation!

^^^After a while you get use to the look. Some people call it edgy.

I've been fighting against plastic bags since they first asked "Paper or plastic" sometime back before 9/11. The problem is that the bags become kites and fly around and encounter the kite eating tree. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2001/01/treebags.html note: from 2001

I moved out of the city back in 1970 but still visit often. I don't remember the streets ever looking as trashy as they do recently. A few years ago I went to a performance in a church on the upper east side near 90th or so. I was surprised to find myself up to my knees in blowing, swirling trash. Maybe it's cleaner now, I've seen women in Chinatown, picking up litter on a Sunday morning, but I think people have just gotten used to it. I still think it looks like s..t

I like how they pretend there's actually a demand for recycled plastic and the city doesn't have to pay people to take their weekly collection of it off their hands.

I've bought shopping bags from reusablebags.com and they work fine. About the same price as a Baggu and with quite comfortable handles that don't cut into your hands.

I don't think 5 cent bags would make a dent in the problem. I've been to grocery stores that charge 10 cents for each large plastic bag. Low-income shoppers go there to buy their cheap groceries then load them up into six or seven bags. Not a big surprise when you consider that these people are blowing their money and food stamps on overpriced prepackaged foods.

Forced recycling is a great idea. I use some for garbage, but still have a large pile from years past, more than I'll need for trash in the next ten years.

Man bags:

http://www.ecobags.com/Our_Products/Canvas_Bags

Makes inexpensive sturdy plain vanilla canvas bags simlar to the ones used by boaters. The sea's pretty manley.

I also like the Baggu bags that Rocknrope mentioned. They're pretty plain-looking, and when you're not using them they fold into a little pouch that's maybe 3" x 3" x 0.5".

The best way to reuse plastic bags is to let your young children play with them! They make wonderful and amusing toys. A great favorite of all children is playing 'Spaceman', using a plastic bag as a make believe Flash Gordon style helmet!

this is a great idea. best to re-use plastic as much as possible.

re-using them for dog doo is better than just tossing them after 1 use, but the problem is you're putting biodegradable material in a non-degradable bag. we've switched to biodegradable "bio bags" for the dog, and also for our trash!

midwestguy, check my link above and pick the "Hunter Green" color so you won't feel so wussy picking up your Ronnybrook yogurt and tofu turnovers at the farmer's market.