- Scorpio (Oct. 24 – Nov. 21)
- You will receive word today that you are eligible to win a million dollars in prizes. It will be from a magazine trying to get you to subscribe, and you’re just dumb enough to think you’ve got a chance to win. You’re a really slow learner.
- July 12, 1974
- I am at a grocery store in Israel, picking up a few things. At the cash register, no one bags my stuff. No one even offers me a bag. I am outraged to learn that, were I to want a bag, I would have to pay for it. Paying for bags, I am told, encourages people to reuse the bags instead of throwing them away.
- July 13, 1974
- Reuse grocery bags to save a few cents? I guess it makes a little sense. But I’m glad that we don’t have to do that in the United States.
- August 24, 1974
- I’m back in the US and have completely forgotten about the bags.
- February 12, 1983
- My local Safeway grocery store asks me whether I want paper or plastic bags. I choose plastic, feel virtuous, and think (briefly) about the Israeli grocery store, nine years earlier.
- November 16, 2004
- Our landfills are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The trees in our parks are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The ponds in our parks are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The news is full of stories about plastic grocery bags. The Israeli grocery bag concept creeps back into my consciousness (temporarily).
- April 23, 2009
- US House of Representatives Democrats introduce a bill “aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and curbing toxic pollution by… imposing a 5-cent tax on single-use plastic bags….” (New York Times, New bottle deposit, bag tax bills touted for combating pollution). The Israeli grocery store, from 35 years ago, comes back to mind. I am a really slow learner.
We need fewer plastic bags and fewer paper bags. We need another tax like we need holes in our heads. Here’s a better idea:
Next time you go to the store and you have your groceries put into your reusable canvas bags, ask to speak to the manager. Tell him that you want to pay less for your groceries because the store didn’t have to give any bags to you.
Why should you pay for bags which you don’t use?
When canvas bags first showed up in the supermarket, I remember that they would offer you a nickel off your bill for each one you brought in and filled up.
That’s the idea. Imagine how much more effective that would be if every grocery store sold plastic and paper bags for a nickel instead of giving them away.
Every store I shop at in the Washington, DC area gives $0.05 off for each grocery bag you bring in. They don’t do this in Missouri?