Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

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Super S
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Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by Super S »

https://katu.com/news/local/kroger-fred ... all-stores

I know the bag laws in some cities likely prompted this, but some areas might not be receptive to this, especially if they decide to start charging for bags.
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Re: Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by arizonaguy »

I think this was inevitable.

I also believe many other chains will phase out plastic bags within the next couple of years.
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Re: Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by storewanderer »

7 years is a long time and a lot can happen between now and then. This is another Kroger puff piece to try to attract some kind of attention similar to their ending gun sales, etc.

The California bag ban is no ban. It is a "pay for your bag" law and get a thicker bag than you need. I enjoyed my 10 cent Made in Germany CVS Bag and my 10 cent Made in Malaysia Raleys Bag I obtained last week also. At least the single use plastic bags are usually made in the USA.

Safeway issued something like this (but not as loudly) years ago about eliminating paper and plastic bags from all stores by a certain time and it never happened.

It could also be Kroger is trying to heed off some additional plastic bag bans by saying "look we have a plan in place to ban the bags so don't regulate us."

It may also be Kroger is trying to see how other retailers respond to this and see how the proceed. Will other retailers follow, implement bag fees, etc.?

It will be interesting to see what comes of this. If anything.

They can stop offering plastic bags at the 5 or 10 fringe QFCs that are in jurisdictions that have not yet imposed a bag ban, that is really just an efficiency thing more than anything else.

Making it harder and harder to shop at physical stores will just drive more and more people to shop online. And I think those big cardboard boxes filled with plastic air sheets, sealed shut with thick plastic packaging tape, probably cause a lot more damage to the environment than the thin grocery store bags do. I know that when a bag fee/bag ban is imposed in my area, I will switch a significant portion of my shopping to online sources.
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Re: Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by jamcool »

I wonder how many customers Fry's loses in AZ with this screwball move, all of the other chains here don't charge for bags. This bag ban is one of the biggest frauds ever, you are not reducing pollution or energy use. All of the "reuse" bags are imported from overseas (usually China)using fossil fuels, they use petrochemicals to make them. It takes energy, soap, and chemicals to sterlize them, if you can. If you don't sterilize them they become a petri dish for bacteria and a health hazard. As a comparison, most of the plastic bags are US made.

So will they bring back paper bags? or the box corrals?
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Re: Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by mbz321 »

jamcool wrote: August 23rd, 2018, 7:37 pm I wonder how many customers Fry's loses in AZ with this screwball move, all of the other chains here don't charge for bags. This bag ban is one of the biggest frauds ever, you are not reducing pollution or energy use. All of the "reuse" bags are imported from overseas (usually China)using fossil fuels, they use petrochemicals to make them. It takes energy, soap, and chemicals to sterlize them, if you can. If you don't sterilize them they become a petri dish for bacteria and a health hazard. As a comparison, most of the plastic bags are US made.

So will they bring back paper bags? or the box corrals?
I don't understand why people are so obsessed over plastic bags. I end up with so many I practically have to beg cashiers to not put stuff in them (no, I don't need a plastic bag for my one tiny item that can go in my pocket). I use a reusable bag at the grocery store, but still end up with tons and tons of bags from routine shopping elsewhere.

Most other countries manage just fine using reusable or recyclable methods of transporting groceries. What did people do before plastic bags came about? You can buy a couple of plastic crates (Made in the USA!) at Costco (no bags there!) and use them to haul groceries, or grab a cardboard box...made in the USA and you can actually recycle it. Aldi popularity has been growing larger and larger, and guess what, people adapt to either using something other than plastic bags, or paying for them. There is no need for an unnecessary burden on the environment just because you can't think of a way to somehow transport your groceries home besides a bunch of single use bags that will end up with holes in them before you can even put your groceries away.

And nobody is saying these chains like Kroger won't provide paper bags for use, which has already been done in many areas with plastic bans.

And the whole thing about reusable bags and germs sounds more like a shock story you hear on the 11:00 local news than something that is actually a legitimate issue, likely exacerbated by the plastic bag industry. It's easy to wash out a bag and you can always still use those small clear bags to separate meat or produce items like you would use anyway.

Kudos to Kroger if they actually follow through...hopefully others start joining in.
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Re: Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by jamcool »

Euros have tiny refrigerators and kitchens and shop every day, Americans do one big weekly trip to the store and stock up, hard to do that with no bags.

And it was the same envirocranks that complained about paper bags that gave us plastic bags.
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Re: Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by mbz321 »

jamcool wrote: August 23rd, 2018, 9:38 pm Euros have tiny refrigerators and kitchens and shop every day, Americans do one big weekly trip to the store and stock up, hard to do that with no bags.

And it was the same envirocranks that complained about paper bags that gave us plastic bags.

Actually, surveys show that the more recent trend is that younger people visit grocery stores much more frequently than older generations and buy just what they need for a few days, especially if one is buying more perishable items. The new generation of shopper isn't going to a big name grocer and loading up all at once, but are spreading it out throughout the week going to various stores, farmers markets, wholesale clubs, etc. And how do you think people in walkable American cities shop? They aren't carrying 10 plastic bags with them on the bus or walking down the street...they use giant heavy duty bags or have their own foldable carts. (Ok, some might call an Uber..)

And yes, paper bags were seen to be bad back in the day, but that was before paper recycling and controlled growth forests were a widespread thing. Now that we are chocking ourselves in plastic, the tides have turned. Of course, they are still much more expensive to produce than plastic bags.

There are absolutely no justifiable reasons for continued use of single use grocery bags.
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Re: Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by storewanderer »

mbz321 wrote: August 23rd, 2018, 10:27 pm
jamcool wrote: August 23rd, 2018, 9:38 pm Euros have tiny refrigerators and kitchens and shop every day, Americans do one big weekly trip to the store and stock up, hard to do that with no bags.

And it was the same envirocranks that complained about paper bags that gave us plastic bags.

Actually, surveys show that the more recent trend is that younger people visit grocery stores much more frequently than older generations and buy just what they need for a few days, especially if one is buying more perishable items. The new generation of shopper isn't going to a big name grocer and loading up all at once, but are spreading it out throughout the week going to various stores, farmers markets, wholesale clubs, etc. And how do you think people in walkable American cities shop? They aren't carrying 10 plastic bags with them on the bus or walking down the street...they use giant heavy duty bags or have their own foldable carts. (Ok, some might call an Uber..)

And yes, paper bags were seen to be bad back in the day, but that was before paper recycling and controlled growth forests were a widespread thing. Now that we are chocking ourselves in plastic, the tides have turned. Of course, they are still much more expensive to produce than plastic bags.

There are absolutely no justifiable reasons for continued use of single use grocery bags.
I was in San Francisco recently and in the Trader Joe's up on Nob Hill at least half of the customers were buying paper bags to carry their purchases in. Those who were not buying bags either had just a few items, or a few (very few, less than 10%) people had reusable bags. Also in Seattle last year I went into a few stores in what I'd call "walkable neighborhoods" and observed more than half of the customers in those stores buying paper bags to carry their purchases in. I saw nobody with reusable bags there.

Look, I am not saying that we should ban reusable bags. Despite that my personal experience and observation is that reusable bags are dirty, inefficient to work with, smell bad in some cases... I think the extra soap going into the chemical stream to wash the reusable bags is hurting the fish in the ocean. I also think the extra use of petroleum products in China to produce the reusable bags is harming the environment there. I think it is just fine if people want to use them, that is certainly their choice. I think the store should even provide a 5 cent credit for those who come and bring a reusable bag since they aren't using the store provided bags. I simply do not think the reusable bags are any good for the environment.

Where I run into a problem is with the store charging a fee for the bag. And I think it it outright silly for the stores to sell "thicker" plastic bags that are just like the old single use ones in design, but simply thicker. And those bags get packed very full and puncture after the first use. No reusing up to 125 times when they puncture upon first use.

So I think we can agree to disagree but be respectful of people's ability to make their own choices and not impose our views on others who may not agree.

Also I have no "single use grocery bags." All of the plastic bags are used for taking groceries home, then used for trash, light yard work like weed pulling, cleaning up after pets, in some cases to carry food to work, etc. What is single use are the trash bags that we will need to buy if we don't get plastic bags anymore to perform those tasks with.
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Re: Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by Super S »

One thing I will mention is that the reusable bags sometimes encourage shoplifting. Some people have been known to place items in the bag as they are shopping, and simply walk out the door. I often see people in stores just use the bag instead of a cart, and while many honest people simply take the bag up front and empty it at the checkstand, others simply walk out the door as they can blend right in.
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Re: Kroger to phase out plastic bags at all stores

Post by pseudo3d »

Last time I checked, Kroger doesn't even have handles on their bags. Funny it's Kroger pulling this and not Albertsons, as Kroger has more stores in rural/conservative areas. Chain-wide is a horrible idea, they're going to get massacred by Publix in the East Coast.
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