Do you bag your own groceries?

Time you did.

It never ceases to amaze me that customers of socially conscious Trader Joe’s just stand there while their groceries are being bagged for them? Why? Because it’s always been done for them? Because they can persuade themselves they are different from the clerks? Because – well – it’s beneath them?

Will this attitude of entitlement change as the laws change? If customers are obliged to bring their own bags or pay for recycled paper bags, will they bag their own groceries?

A new bill, California AB 1998, has made its way through the House and should soon sail through the Senate, with pretty much all parties on board. Update 8/31/2010: this has stalled in the Senate and now looks unlikely to pass, thanks to the lobby efforts of the chemical industry. It bans grocery stores, pharmacies, liquor and convenience stores from giving out plastic bags effective January 1, 2012. Instead they will be required to charge customers 5 cents for recycled paper bags if the customers forget their own. I’m sure other stores will follow eventually, including fashion stores and suppliers of trash bags and gardening supplies. If they aren’t doing so already, they ought to be exploring compostable bags.

The goal here is to eliminate all those millions of petroleum-based plastic bags polluting the LA River and the Bay, choking fish and wildlife. This kind of plastic never decomposes really; it just forms smaller and smaller granules.

The credit goes to Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, who authored the bill. Some cities have already moved on this of course. In 2007, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to require stores to offer customers bags made of recyclable paper, plastic that can be turned into compost, or cloth or plastic that can be reused. Washington DC imposed a 5 cent tax on plastic bags in January of this year and reportedly it has been very successful in changing consumer behavior. Target here gives you 5 cents off any purchase when you bring your own bag but this approach strikes me as far less effective. Taxes work better than rewards.

So, if I see you at Trader Joe’s will you bag your own groceries? In your own bags?