Monday, April 30, 2012

Get Paid to Use Non-disposable Shopping Bags

Around 100 billion plastic bags are used in the US each year—that is a HUGE number!
In some countries you are actually charged per plastic bag that you use! Many countries have what’s called a PlasTax, such as Switzerland. Even IKEA and Aldi (in the United States) charges .05¢ - .15¢ per bag used!

Did you know that by using a re-usable grocery bag, you can save money? Some stores have put “green initiatives” in place to encourage shoppers to be more earth friendly.
At Target and Lowe’s Foods, you can get 5¢ per re-usable grocery bag off your total, but be sure to remind your cashier you have re-usable bags because there is a bar code they have to scan in order for your 5¢ to come off.
Whole Foods gives you .05¢-.10¢ off per re-usable bag! This varies by store so call ahead!
At CVS, you can purchase a Green Bag Tag (pictured below) for 99¢ and then every 4 times you scan your card, you earn $1.00 ECB. This can only be scanned once per day so even if you do multiple transactions at CVS in a day, you will only get credit for one Bag Tag scan per day. To participate, you must have a CVS ExtraCare Rewards card (free).
Many Trader Joe’s stores offer a .05¢ discount per re-usable bag. Again, check with your local store first! 
One of my readers in California reported some Trader Joe’s locations encourage customers to use their own bags by handing out raffle tickets to win a $25 Trader Joe’s gift card each time they use their own bag instead of disposables! Now that is incentive!
**If you know of a store that pays you to use Re-usable Grocery bags at their store, please leave a comment on this post letting us know the store and how much they pay!**