The new year always comes with a flurry of laws or regulations that were passed in the previous year and take affect on January 1. One interesting law
that took place in Alameda county this year was that supermarkets would stop supplying plastic bags. In addition, they would also start charging 10 cents per
paper bag. In other words people, start bringing your own bags!!
I think this is a good thing. Over the years we must have gotten 10,000 plus plastic bags from the store. I think this is how hoarders start out, just storing plastic shopping bags. Even though we found many uses for them (picking up dog poop, wrapping Christmas ornaments, packing material for shipping boxes) there were still many many many MANY left over. Those we didn’t use we put in
our recycle bin. Plastic bags are right up there with plastic bottles as a leading contributor to pollution and litter. Pulling these littered bags out of
storm drains costs big bucks every year.
Before the new year we were half assed “BYOB’ers”. We had a half dozen reusable bags that we bought from Trader Joe’s. Even have a nice SF Giants bag.
Only problem is that I would always forget them.
So even though I knew about the law and thought I was prepared, the first time I went shopping in the new year, I forgot the bags! It didn’t dawn on me until I was half way through the store with a dozen or so items in my basket. I figured I’d do the “Costco” thing and just put my items back in the shopping cart. A pain in the ass but a lesson learned. I saw other people doing the same thing. I bet Safeway made a mint that day selling their reusable bags.
From that day on I made sure that our reusable bags were in the back of the car. I still forget them and have to leave my cart to run out and get them, but I’m getting better. I can only imagine how much good this law has done in the few weeks it has been in affect. I feel good about this one.
One interesting thing about the new law is that people on food
stamps/assistance get free paper bags. Huh?
