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Opinion: Charging for paper bags feels like a scam, says Potsdam man

Posted 3/20/20

It use to be, once upon a time, that a shopper had the items they purchased, from any merchant, placed in a brown paper bag to fit the size of purchases. Remember those “good ole days” when …

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Opinion: Charging for paper bags feels like a scam, says Potsdam man

Posted

It use to be, once upon a time, that a shopper had the items they purchased, from any merchant, placed in a brown paper bag to fit the size of purchases.

Remember those “good ole days” when grocery shopping, the merchant supplied brown paper bags of assorted sizes free of charge to contain the products you purchased to carry out of the store. Often a clerk would carry your bags full of groceries out to your car as a service. Some of those grocery bags even had strong paper handles to easily carry the bag. So what happened to those days of yore?

Pharmacies like Rexall, and independent drug stores furnished, free of charge, paper bags for your merchandise. No matter who the mercantile was, paper bags were provided free of charge.

Then along came the ‘single use plastic bag’ to carry out your purchases. It was less costly and often stronger than its predecessor, the brown paper bag when gotten wet, would often pull apart. Many consumers, like myself, often requested a brown paper bag be inserted into the plastic bag for more reliable carrying.

Plastic and paper bags were supplied by the merchant free of charge prior to March 1, 2020; then the one time use plastic bag became illegal starting March 1, 2020, through a legislative act in New York State. However, the “free” brown paper bag, through legislative action, could be charged 5 cents each if the consumer didn’t provide a reusable bag to carry their purchased commodities.

I’m all for recycling both plastics and paper containers, but to charge me 5 cents for a paper bag that always had been free to carry my purchase(s) is purely a scam by New York State government.

Maybe it’s me! I just wish for those who agree and sympathize with me, would take the initiative to make their voice heard about this issue, or maybe we just accept being “scammed”.

Henry Walters

Potsdam