With its lack of zoning, obnoxious cyclone fenced frontage roads, and absent landscaping laws, Fairbanks is ugly enough. We don’t need thirty thousand plastic grocery bags floating around town like an errant flock of toxic plastic pigeons.
With the crowding of children’s toys, books, laundry, dishes, bills, and magazines, my house doesn’t need anything else in it. I didn’t need the mob of a thousand plastic grocery bags that had accumulated in the crawl space under the stairs. They had begun to function as insulation.
So this winter, I got rid of them. All of them. I walked into the foyer at Fred Meyer and stuffed them all into the receptacle marked, “Bag Recycling.” It was empty when I walked in and bursting when I walked out. I then went to Value Village and bought five excellent large canvas bags. I had been feeling guilty about it for years and finally I no longer take plastic bags.
On the days I forget my canvas bags, I have the cashier set all the items back into my cart after they’ve been scanned. I load them in the back of the car loose. Sometimes I do this even with the bags, so I can pack the items to my exacting specifications. Granted, I’ll make more of an effort to remember the bags when it’s -30 and I don’t want to spend any extra time out in the parking lot.
I feel good about the canvas bags. I’m doing something, small, but something. I feel free. I’m dragging less garbage into my house. Fred Meyer even gives me a little pat on the back. They offer a five cent per bag refund off your total when you bring your own bags.
Our great state has even begun to discuss doing something about the bags. Senator Kim Elton introduced SB 118 to institute a fee for plastic bags. I support the bill, but wish it would go further and ban them outright. It’s not just Alaska. There’s a growing movement to get rid of the disposable plastic shopping bag.
With the political pressure, our friends over at Fred Meyer have decided to do a little more to encourage reusable bags. Recently, a cashier ringing me up and packing my canvas bags mentioned that they had placed a display of canvas bags in front of the U-Scan check out. She said the pending legislation had inspired the management to offer them. She also shared statistics about how much the bags cost the store, leading me to believe the cashiers have recently been subjected to some training in corporate environmentalism.
A friend, and regular Fred’s shopper, who has been bringing her own bags for years told me that she sometimes feels like the cashiers groan when they see her–a baby-sling wearing, bandana-headed, organic-buying hippie mom with all her bags. In the last month that’s starting to change. Lately, the cashiers have been grimace-free and supportive of me and my bags.
My husband, who likes to leave the bags in car and pack them himself to avoid, as he puts it, “looking like a kook,” might feel like less of a kook in the current Fred Meyer political climate. Perhaps we can help him out. Please, Fairbanksans, turn down the bags. Bring your own. Thank Fred Meyer for the five cent bonuses. Contact your senator and ask him or her to support SB 118.
If enough of us do it, canvas bags will become the norm and we can all self-righteously glare at people carrying plastic bags. Let’s make them the pariah smokers of the future! Yes! We can do it if we all work together.
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