Health & Fitness
Psychology of a Nickel
It's only 5 cents per bag, but are you willingly paying it, diligent about bringing your re-usable bags, or carrying all your eggs and toothpaste in your arms?
As everyone knows by now, if you get a bag in the grocery store, carryout, department store, etc., it will cost a nickel. The new bag tax is to help fund clean-up of the environment, encourage recycling, reduce trash. Its only 5 cents per bag. But doesn't it seem like so much more?
I was in the drugstore the other day and noticed a guy pushing a cart full of toothpaste and lotion and soap and bandaids - the stuff you buy at the drugstore. He had refused any bags and said he was just going to throw it all in the car as is, rather than pay for the bag. My daughter commented that he had just spent a bunch of money, didn't want to pay the nickel, and was probably going to lose his toothpaste under his carseat on the ride home. And I'm sure we've all witnessed it, or done it - refusing to pay the nickel and just carrying our purchases in our arms.
One evening, I had to consider the cost of this nickel. I was waiting for my son (yes, I am always waiting for somebody somewhere) and debating - should I sit and read or make a quick grocery run. Well, I didn't have any bags with me - they were all sitting in the kitchen, all hundred or so of them. I really had to give this some thought - go shopping now, while I was doing nothing and pay for the bags, or go the next day in the middle of an already busy day, but save on the bags. You'd think we were talking about $100 tax, not 5 cents, right?
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In general, the bag tax doesn't bother me. If it encourages people to recycle, there's a positive to it. We do a pretty good job at recycling at home. We put out our blue bins, full of bottles and cans and newspapers. We use the back of flyers for notes and grocery lists and scribbled drawings. The kids take their lunch in lunch boxes and plastic containers. And when we're out, we put our cans and bottles in the blue bins and carry our own trash bag to the park or the beach. And we own about 100 reusable bags!
I finally decided, that the 30 cents for the bags today was worth saving my time tomorrow. And I need to start keeping those reusable bags in the trunk instead of in the kitchen.
