Local Disney Store - no bags!!!

[tinkerhon]

Our mall store has had the no-bag policy for probably a year and a half now

 

[bcla]

Mostly this is a matter of city/county ordinances.

 

[disneychrista]

I don;t get why you would have to buy small plastic bags. Other than the re usable bags that you can at grocery stores, all other stores just switched from plastic bags to paper bags. We still have a bag of bags in the cupboard, which I use in in the bathroom trash can, packing lunches for work, collecting recycling, collecting donations for Goodwill, gathering used paper towels from spills, storing crafting items and most other uses which we used to use the plastic bags from stores.

And for some of these the paper bags are actually BETTER because they stand up right on their own.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Technically you have ALWAYS been paying for bag, it was just a "hidden" cost instead of an upfront cost.

But they didn't eliminate the "hidden" cost when they implemented the upfront cost. So it's still an extra cost added to purchases.

 

[disneychrista]

But they didn't eliminate the "hidden" cost when they implemented the upfront cost. So it's still an extra cost added to purchases.

The cost of the bag is so minimal that you would never notice it on the cost of the items you purchase. And I never said that it isn't now an added cost. However, in all the areas around where I live, it is not the business that implemented the charge is the local government. And some areas have talked about increasing the charge to 25¢ vs the current 10¢ standard.

 

[Disneyland_emily]

We gave up ’single use bags’ for ’Lent’ (not catholic but love the idea) and it was rough the few weeks remembering but kept at it as it’s been so wonderful not having to deal with the bags cluttering everything.

we either take a bag with or just say no bag if we are buying one or two items our reusable ones hang on a hook in the garage So easy to grab on the way to the car.

 

[kaytieeldr]

But they didn't eliminate the "hidden" cost when they implemented the upfront cost. So it's still an extra cost added to purchases.

You can buy a bundle of disposable plastic shopping bags on Amazon in bulk for 3¢-7¢ each. Not per item sold in the store, but per bag. Nobody not employed in retail accounting of management would reasonably be expected to know whether eliminating these bags delayed price increases.

I don't have any proof that this is tue, it's just my assumption, but does anybody know otherwise? Even if it didn't, eliminating plastic bags increased share value.

It's not personal, it's just business.

 

[Traveling on cc points]

My state has started charging $0.10 tax per plastic bag. It’s actually $0.11 because they tax the tax. (Don’t ask me how that is legal)
A good amount of stores stopped offering plastic bags altogether and started charging the $0.10 per paper bag. I purchased a box of 1000 plastic bags on amazon for $0.03 a piece and just bring them into the grocery stores.

 

[AurumPunzel]

They have since last year, and I personally think it's a stupid policy. How on earth are people going to remember to bring their own bags for just one store if others around the Disney Store don't do the same? And don't even get me started on how stupid bag ordinances are, because they've never been proven to have any real positive environmental benefit. Not to mention that the plastic bags they used to have were far superior to those cheap and nasty overpriced dustcovers they have now (the reusables don't even have any recycled content and cannot be recycled unlike the plastic bags), and best of all, they were reusable too. No plastic bag is ever 'single-use' to me, especially a Disney one, and sooner or later, this policy will be the death of the Disney Stores as we know it. I miss the bags, though I'm so glad I've saved them all, because I loved the designs they had, especially the last ones, and the ones they had 10 years ago, which still had the controversial blue and pink variants of the medium-sized bags.

 

[brockash]

Thank you! I didn't even think about that aspect. When we got our own house the first thing we got was one of those plastic bag holders that clips on the fridge. Bags go in the top then I'd use them in the bathroom trash cans or while walking the dog. Also use them for pet laundry, packing lunches for work, collecting recycling, collecting donations for Goodwill, carrying toys for Toys for tots, gathering used paper towels from spills, storing paint jars in my art supplies drawers. I'm gonna hate having to buy small bags. ;_;

This is us as well. "Single use" plastic bags have never been single use for us, or anyone else that I know really either.

 

[MrsPete]

My town is banning single use bags starting January 1.

Good for your town. We have to get serious about our plastic problem in this country.

Just looking to our grocery cabinets and see how much plastic is used in packaging food.

I totally agree that food packaging is a much bigger problem than grocery bags, but we the individual consumers have little control over that. We have to buy food, so we have no choice but to buy that plastic -- we do have a choice to bring our own bags. It's an easy "first step".

The reality is that MOST of the plastic we send out for recycling IS NOT RECYCLED. It's sold to other countries to "store", and those countries are on the cusp of saying, "No more."

We as a society really must downsize food packaging, and I personally don't know how we can do that -- but experts on the topic know. Maybe we need to stop buying 4-packs of muffins in plastic clam shells, need to skip pretty plastic sleeves that fit over plastic packaging, need to find a new way to package yogurt, sour cream, and other things that currently come in plastic tubs. We can buy milk in cardboard containers, which seem to me to be more recyclable than plastic jugs -- why not these other items?

What we as individual consumers can do is to choose minimal packaging and reuse what we do buy. Examples: Refuse to buy individual pudding packs /make your own pudding, even if it's from a small cardboard box. When you buy a glass jar of spaghetti sauce, save the jar and use it for leftovers. Take your own reusable Tupperware to a restaurant /refuse their styrofoam containers for your take-homes.

Agreed. Eventually people are going to have to adapt it’s happening whether we like it or not.

Yes, the consequences of our inaction are already upon us -- we must change our collective ways.

This is us as well. "Single use" plastic bags have never been single use for us, or anyone else that I know really either.

I think you're referring to plastic grocery bags -- and I agree that the good, thick ones make good trash can liners, but so many of them are too thin to really be useful.

Think beyond those grocery bags though: I suspect the bag that's inside your cereal box, the bag that holds your rice, the bag that contained a loaf of bread, and the bag that held your grapes all went into the trash can /on to the landfill.

 

[MillauFr]

Yep, which is why I won't shop there.

Yes you should just be able to click on the item in the store and have it shipped to your house.

 

[MillauFr]

Costco has never given away bags. Hasn't impacted their business in a negative way.

 

[MillauFr]

People hated the plastic bags, hated them.

People don't like change. It doesn't matter if the change is good or not. It takes them a while to realize that change is sometimes good. Won't stop them from complaining bitterly about it though.

 

[AurumPunzel]

Costco has never given away bags. Hasn't impacted their business in a negative way.

But that's because their business model is different. They're not usually found in malls and they provide shopping carts for the convenience of customers. If you don't have a bag and you shop at Costco, you can just cart them out. Disney Stores, on the other hand, function differently, and when you take away the convenience, you end up alienating a large number of customers.

Good for your town. We have to get serious about our plastic problem in this country.

I disagree. Bag bans remove the democracy of choice, and without turning it into a political argument (which I know is a nicht-nicht in here), it often has a lot of unpleasant side effects such as increasing plastic consumption through dedicated single-use plastic bags people would now have to purchase to make up for the free bags they used to get, and can even lead to an increase in diseases spreading as people would often skimp on cleaning their reusable bags after using them for certain food products. Not to mention job losses and driving people opposed to the bag ban to shopping elsewhere or online, which hurts the local economy.

 

[disneychrista]

I think you're referring to plastic grocery bags -- and I agree that the good, thick ones make good trash can liners, but so many of them are too thin to really be useful.

Haven't used or had them available here in many years but when they were around most were so badly/cheaply made the seem was splitting BEFORE they even but the groceries in them. So many people asked things to be double bagged for this reason.

 

[spiders]

Just get used to it. The whole country is moving towards this.

Even Kroger is getting rid of their plastic bags...I think they said they’re getting rid of them in 2 more years but you can Google it if you want.

 

[AurumPunzel]

Just get used to it. The whole country is moving towards this.

Even Kroger is getting rid of their plastic bags...I think they said they’re getting rid of them in 2 more years but you can Google it if you want.

Not really. Sooner or later, this whole fad of phasing out and banning plastic bags will massively backfire, and end in tears, or at best, unintended consequences.

 

[MrsPete]

I disagree. Bag bans remove the democracy of choice, and without turning it into a political argument (which I know is a nicht-nicht in here), it often has a lot of unpleasant side effects such as increasing plastic consumption through dedicated single-use plastic bags people would now have to purchase to make up for the free bags they used to get, and can even lead to an increase in diseases spreading as people would often skimp on cleaning their reusable bags after using them for certain food products. Not to mention job losses and driving people opposed to the bag ban to shopping elsewhere or online, which hurts the local economy.

I hear what you're saying, but we've had "democracy of choice" for decades, and it's killing the planet. I think most people imagine that what they toss into the recycling bin today comes back tomorrow in another form -- when, in reality, most of what goes into our recycling bin ends up in a landfill.

On other points, I'm with you /not with you:
- I agree that it's ridiculous to sell bags instead of giving them away; that's about money, not the environment.
- I'm not concerned about disease from reused bags -- not when food is so strongly packaged in plastic.
- I don't think many people will refuse to shop because of lack of bags; rather, I think people will adapt their behavior and start carrying their own bags.
- As for shopping online instead, that does create a new issue: so many cardboard Amazon boxes! We need a mechanism for re-use.

 

[disneychrista]

In the end it all comes down to people getting used to the new "normal."

I agree that at the mall bring your own bag is more awkward. I just put loop the handles of a bag around my purse handles and go. If I had a larger purse I would just put one in my purse. Of course if one doesn't carry a purse then it becomes even more awkward but not really any more so that carrying bags filled with purchases.