Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

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Re: Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

Hopefully this doesn't open the door for other retailers to get sued over super-thick plastic bags,as certain chains can't afford to be targeted(please don't let any of the drugstores get hit).At least Trader Joe's has been sticking with paper bags for the 10-cent situations.
For your life,Thrifty and Payless have got it.
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Re: Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

Post by storewanderer »

I posted a thread a number of months ago about this. Basically there are people who are angry that a "recycling" symbol appears on these super thick bags (even though it says store drop off and/or there is language that says to return to store for recycling). So they are suing the retailers for putting it on the bags. These cases ought to be laughed out of the court. But we will see what happens.

The super thick bags are allowed by the CA law. The super thick bags are the "compromise" that enabled the law to go into place. Without the super thick bags, the law would not have passed, as Padilla and Becerra were both representing districts with a plastic bag factory when the law was proposed and were opposing the law on the merits of job losses for those factories. The super thick bags were the compromise to advance the law.

Trader Joe's has been dispensing "Made in Germany" super thick plastic bags for a while now including a holiday design, but I have noticed in the past six weeks or so that they did not have any more of those.

What I find interesting is they target two CA-only chains- Gelson's and Stater. Stater uses the oddly shaped super thick bags made by a manufacturer who supported the CA bag ban (as they saw it as a money making scheme to sell the thicker bags). When the ban was first passed, most of the grocers were using that company's bags but as time has gone on most have stopped using those bags and reverted to super thick versions of the T-Shirt bags. Most recently I noticed even Smart & Final quit using those bags and switched to super thick T-Shirt bags. The plastic bag industry is making more money than ever in CA selling these super thick bags.

Gelson's uses the super thick T-Shirt bags made by a different manufacturer. Most other chains at this point are using super thick T-Shirt bags.

Gelson's and Stater are being unfairly targeted when many large retailers in the state are dispensing the exact same super thick plastic bags with the exact same language/recycling logos. I don't think it is a coincidence they targeted two CA-only chains. Larger national chains getting sued over this type of law will start to take a look and ask themself if they should really continue to accept so many laws like this being passed or if they should stand up and fight back against these laws.

Meanwhile in the middle of a water shortage it takes 1 gallon of water to make a paper bag. It takes a small fraction of a gallon to make a standard thin plastic bag (of course it takes more to make a super thick plastic bag, but still not nearly as much as a paper bag). We won't even go into the gallons of water it takes to make the $2+ Made in China reusable bags and clean them properly (I'm not talking about cloth bags you can throw in the laundry, I'm talking about the plastic flock lined ones since those represent 90% of the reusable bags for sale in CA stores). The thin plastic bag has the least environmental impact and is the most efficient, as the retailers figured out. The correct solution here to those areas who feel the desire to regulate shopping bags is to return the thin plastic bags, and put a tax on them similar to the bag fee. The super thick plastic bags have got to go.
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Re: Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

Post by HCal »

I agree that the super-thick plastic bags have got to go, and this lawsuit may be the only way to do it without revising the law. If the lawsuit is successful, retailers will have no choice but to switch to paper bags.
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Re: Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: June 9th, 2022, 10:49 pm I agree that the super-thick plastic bags have got to go, and this lawsuit may be the only way to do it without revising the law. If the lawsuit is successful, retailers will have no choice but to switch to paper bags.
You will see this law get thrown out if this challenge is successful. Or you will see the law is no longer being "enforced" anymore if this challenge is successful. The supply chain for paper bags is very fragile at this time and cannot support that type of demand. I expect the plastic bag companies will defend this because they are making a ton of money on these super thick bags the CA grocers are being forced to use (as other CA retailers continue to use thin bags, along with some locations of some retailers that are banned from using thin bags). Paper bag cost is now over 20 cents per bag for smaller grocers (ordering paper bags from their wholesaler that have the handles; some CA cities legally require the handles so the wholesalers generally only offer the ones with handles in CA to the independents); larger chains are getting them around 12 or 13 cents. This law also hurts small grocers most as they are caused to either absorb increased bag costs, have a higher bag fee than larger chains, not offer full size paper bags, or not offer bags at all also putting them at a disadvantage to larger chains. This is also quite unfair to small retailers required to provide free bags to WIC/Food Stamp users. In a business where profit margin ends up being a couple pennies for every dollar of sales, that $20 food stamp transaction that receives 2 free paper bags that cost the independent grocer 44 cents- well- in the cost of those bags went all of the profit from that transaction. The old thin bags that only cost 4 cents each ate up some profit but didn't turn the transaction into a loss.

The above is no different than the days of the old thin bags- the independent paid 4 or 5 cents per thin bag (though if attached to a wholesaler the grocer would have the option to, but often did not opt in preferring a bag with their store name on it, to get a thin bag promoting the wholesaler's private label with some marketing funds from the private label program picking up part of the bag cost) and the large chain paid 2 or 3 cents for the thin bag. A couple cents cost disadvantage isn't a huge deal. But when you start taking 10-12 cents cost disadvantage like the paper bags currently have for independent vs. large chain the losses start to add up.

It is also not practical to move 100% to paper bags due to the water shortage.

Also if this lawsuit is successful a lot of the reusable bags will be illegal as well (not just the super thick plastic ones)...

The CA law in 2020 that expired which required stores to have recycling bins in the stores for the plastic bags being re-imposed is the likely outcome I see to this lawsuit. And that law should have never expired in the first place. Many stores still have plastic bag recycling including Wal Mart, Target, and Safeway. Between those retailers alone, you basically have about half of the stores subject to the CA thin plastic bag ban offering in-store bag recycling. The bags are collected and shipped back to the plastic bag manufacturer. The super thick plastic bags have a requirement of 40% recycled material in California (more or less in some other states with bag regulations) and they have to get that material from somewhere...

Also it is a lie that curbside recycling programs cannot take plastic bags. Many cities run with that excuse. However, for instance, San Francisco's curbside recycling program takes plastic bags (and, you know, all that plastic air that comes in shipping containers, or the plastic bags used to package food like bread, etc.). You have to bag them separately and put them on top of your recyclables. That may be another outcome of this lawsuit is to force all of the curbside recycling programs in the state to go with the rules the San Francisco program has.

These bag regulations are just hurting everyone and not even helping the environment. Maybe the one in NJ that bans all paper and plastic bags at the grocery store (including the super thick ones) works... if people tolerate it... none of these others do.
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Re: Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

Post by HCal »

storewanderer wrote: June 9th, 2022, 11:01 pm You will see this law get thrown out if this challenge is successful. Or you will see the law is no longer being "enforced" anymore if this challenge is successful. The supply chain for paper bags is very fragile at this time and cannot support that type of demand. I expect the plastic bag companies will defend this because they are making a ton of money on these super thick bags the CA grocers are being forced to use (as other CA retailers continue to use thin bags, along with some locations of some retailers that are banned from using thin bags). Paper bag cost is now over 20 cents per bag for smaller grocers (ordering paper bags from their wholesaler that have the handles; some CA cities legally require the handles so the wholesalers generally only offer the ones with handles in CA to the independents); larger chains are getting them around 12 or 13 cents. This law also hurts small grocers most as they are caused to either absorb increased bag costs, have a higher bag fee than larger chains, not offer full size paper bags, or not offer bags at all also putting them at a disadvantage to larger chains. This is also quite unfair to small retailers required to provide free bags to WIC/Food Stamp users. In a business where profit margin ends up being a couple pennies for every dollar of sales, that $20 food stamp transaction that receives 2 free paper bags that cost the independent grocer 44 cents- well- in the cost of those bags went all of the profit from that transaction. The old thin bags that only cost 4 cents each ate up some profit but didn't turn the transaction into a loss.

The above is no different than the days of the old thin bags- the independent paid 4 or 5 cents per thin bag (though if attached to a wholesaler the grocer would have the option to, but often did not opt in preferring a bag with their store name on it, to get a thin bag promoting the wholesaler's private label with some marketing funds from the private label program picking up part of the bag cost) and the large chain paid 2 or 3 cents for the thin bag. A couple cents cost disadvantage isn't a huge deal. But when you start taking 10-12 cents cost disadvantage like the paper bags currently have for independent vs. large chain the losses start to add up.

It is also not practical to move 100% to paper bags due to the water shortage.

Also if this lawsuit is successful a lot of the reusable bags will be illegal as well (not just the super thick plastic ones)...

The CA law in 2020 that expired which required stores to have recycling bins in the stores for the plastic bags being re-imposed is the likely outcome I see to this lawsuit. And that law should have never expired in the first place. Many stores still have plastic bag recycling including Wal Mart, Target, and Safeway. Between those retailers alone, you basically have about half of the stores subject to the CA thin plastic bag ban offering in-store bag recycling. The bags are collected and shipped back to the plastic bag manufacturer. The super thick plastic bags have a requirement of 40% recycled material in California (more or less in some other states with bag regulations) and they have to get that material from somewhere...
I don't see how the law could possibly get thrown out. The law is not even being challenged in this case, and a judge can't throw out a law because it's not workable.

If the supply chain for paper bags can't meet the demand, then that will drive up the price. Perhaps stores will start charging 15-20 cents per bag, and that will motivate more people to reuse them.

From what I know, plastic bags cannot be recycled into plastic bags. The 40% recycled material in thick plastic bags usually comes from plastic bottles and the like.
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Re: Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: June 9th, 2022, 11:32 pm

I don't see how the law could possibly get thrown out. The law is not even being challenged in this case, and a judge can't throw out a law because it's not workable.

If the supply chain for paper bags can't meet the demand, then that will drive up the price. Perhaps stores will start charging 15-20 cents per bag, and that will motivate more people to reuse them.

From what I know, plastic bags cannot be recycled into plastic bags. The 40% recycled material in thick plastic bags usually comes from plastic bottles and the like.
The law gets thrown out when the grocers decide they don't want to deal with it anymore (once it is costing them more money than it is worth) and will use their lobby to get the law thrown out or re-worked. The tipping point is coming as the cost of the bags exceeds 10 cents and the retailers are spending more money on bags now than when they were giving the free thin bags.

What you describe has already happened for paper bags but most will not charge above the minimum fee for competitive reasons. But some grocers, specifically independents, flat out cannot get paper grocery bags... they are just flat out unavailable. Or they get in a few days worth of them and no more of them show up from the supplier for a month.

Also your information is incorrect that the plastic bags are not recycled into new plastic bags. That must be another line the plastic police go spewing around. They make up a lot of lies to cause bag fees to be imposed and get thin plastic bags banned. This video shows the process. It is a process, yes. So is making paper bags (that process that uses one gallon of water PER bag)...
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Re: Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

Post by veteran+ »

I really don't care about costs to the retailer. Just do not pass that cost of doing business to the consumer.

I care more about what is the best option (with our current technology) for our environment. I also hope that future technology can make this topic disappear.
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Re: Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

Post by jamcool »

Sorry, every expense of a business is passed on to the consumer in some way…unless you want GovFoodCo
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Re: Gelson's, Stater Bros Sued Over Thick Plastic Bags

Post by veteran+ »

True, but I would like to see more sharing of expenses with stakeholders and the E-Suite instead of the employee and the consumer.

Idealistic and inprobable of course.
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