Fee per bag at Giant

Some first hand experience of using a fee per bag system, from a graduate student in Maryland:

January 22, 2007
Fun at Giant Foods

So I'm back at school, and I went to the Giant to pick up some food, to get ready for living on my own again. A few things struck me...

Japan Charging for Bags

January 11, 2007
Aeon to charge for shopping bags
Japan Today, Tokyo

Aeon Co, a nationwide supermarket chain operator, plans to begin charging for plastic shopping bags at all of its outlets in the near future in a bid to contribute to environmental protection, company officials said Wednesday...

Recycling Programs Failing in Greece

Greece's citizens resisted a plastax in 2005, but they are dealing with some big trash problems now:

12/23/06
Trash piles up as recycling fails
Kathimerini, Athens, Greece

The amount of rubbish produced per person in Greece has increased 43 percent to 440 kilos per year since 1995 with packaging waste – from food and consumer items – adding to household garbage, experts said yesterday. Most of the household rubbish ends up in any one of the 1,200 legal and illegal landfills that can be found across Greece...

Pay Per Bag at Farmers Market

A vendor at a Vancouver Farmers Market is charging a per-bag fee to encourage the use of reusables:

July 2006
The Plas Tax: A Tax with an Environmental Conscience
By Vicki Baker, Coquitlam Farmers Market (originally published in "The Cream of the Crop", CFMS newsletter June 4, 2006)

You may have noticed that one of our vendors is now charging a small fee for plastic bags. This vendor was motivated by a similar initiative by the Government of Ireland which in 2002, began charging consumers a 15 cent levy on each plastic bag used at the checkout counter: the "Plas Tax", as it's come to be known...

Pay per bag in China

Charging for shopping bags

12-07-2006
http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20061207/101435.shtml
Lu Yuying, CCTV

China's supermarket industry spends five billion yuan on shopping bags and packing boxes each year. The financial and environmental costs are tremendous. Now some supermarkets in the southwestern city of Kunming City have begun to charge for plastic bags, but response has been lukewarm...

Students plan to ditch bags

More from Wales, the Guild of Students at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth:

Ditching Plastic Bags

December 02, 2006
http://aberenvironment.blogspot.com/2006/12/ditching-plastic-bags.html

This Monday, at the Guild General Meeting at 6.15pm in The Joint, in the Union, I will be proposing a motion, seconded by Jenny from The Ethical Living Liason (TELL), for the Union shop to start charging for giving out plastic bags.This would be a 5p charge for every plastic bag that a person takes with them, and the funds raised will go back into campaigning for environmental improvements in the Union and elsewhere on campus...