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Printer-Friendly ModeSaginaw retail goes green
Saginaw area retailers follow a global trend toward the use of cloth bags
February 18, 2008 —
Recently, some Saginaw area retail stores have offered cloth bags to their customers instead of the usual plastic bags that shoppers may be more familiar with. Of course, like most environmental-friendly ideas, the cloth bags come with a price tag.
The Meijer on Tittabawasee Road in Kochville Township, for example, has followed suit, offering customers reusable cloth bags that are also biodegradable. The cost of a single bag, which can be found at the entrance to the establishment, costs 99 cents.
Kroger on Gratiot Road is also offering customers the opportunity to purchase a reusable bag. Customers can purchase an insulated bag for $2.99 or one without insulation that is similar to the Meijer bag. The non-insulated Kroger bag is also 99 cents.
Saginaw area stores are following suit to a worldwide trend in the shift away from plastic bags. China, for example, has banned the use of some plastic bags in stores, saving it tens of millions of barrels of oil. In like manner, the Republic of Ireland has placed a 15-cent tax on plastic bags. Known as the "Plastax," this plastic bag tax has generated millions of dollars in revenue for Ireland while at the same time cutting down on plastic bag use by nearly 90 percent.
According to the Sierra Club's ffficial Web site, 80 percent of all groceries across the United States are placed into plastic bags. In addition to being a large litter problem in certain areas around the globe, plastic bags also require a lot of petroleum during production. It takes approximately 11 barrels of petroleum to produce one ton of plastic bags. Using cloth bags cuts down on the use of oil, a non-renewable resource that is becoming ever-increasingly scarce.
The first plastic bags were used during the beginning of the 1960s. By the 1970s large retailers such as Sears Roebuck and J.C. Penny started using plastic bags as well. It wasn't until 1994 that the first tax on plastic shopping bags was implemented in Denmark.
Sara Dingman, a 21-year-old SVSU student majoring in criminal justice said that cloth bags, although a good idea, are really only a pipe-dream.
"Cloth bags may be reusable and better," Dingman said, "but some people still wont reuse them and not every place will start using them."
Dingman also said she thought cloth bags would be an inconvenience because a person would have one more thing to remember when they leave their home to go shopping and the bags would "take up extra space when having to go shopping."