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Colorado Grocer To Begin Bagless Checkout

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Mar 25, 2009 8:03 pm US/Mountain

Colorado Grocer To Begin Bagless Checkout

Written by Paul Day

Reporting
Paul Day

LAKEWOOD, Colo. (CBS4) ―

Click to enlarge 1 of 3: Signs are up in all 24 of Vitamin Cottage's Colorado stores proclaiming "BYOB" for bring your own bag.
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Vitamin Cottage

A Lakewood-based food store chain will become the first in the state to stop providing grocery bags of any kind to its customers.

"We're helping train them," said Nancy Flynn, Director of Marketing for Vitamin Cottage.

Signs are up in all 24 of the chain's Colorado stores proclaiming "BYOB" for bring your own bag.

"It's a great idea," said a middle-aged lady as she checked out at the Vitamin Cottage store in Ken Caryl. "It's green."

This weekend, Vitamin Cottage will stop ordering paper grocery bags. The company did away with plastic grocery bags a year ago.

By Earth Day, April 22, all customers will be expected to bring their own canvas totes or use cardboard boxes to carry products out of the store.

But not every customer is ready for the change.

"I don't like," confessed an elderly gentleman who was cradling a couple items he just bought in a large paper bag. "It's inconvenient and I don't like to carry bags around wherever I go."

But Vitamin Cottage believes free grocery bags are a huge and harmful waste. The company claims 14 million trees are cut down every year to make paper bags. It says discarded plastic bags clog landfills and spread toxins.

Is Vitamin Cottage worried about alienating some current customers?

"That was a concern in the beginning," Flynn said.

Since 2004 the company has tried several strategies to wean customers off the habit of free grocery bags. Currently, for every customer that shows up with a recyclable tote, a nickel is donated to local charities.

But old habits can be hard to break.

A young mother with small kids went through the checkout and had to fill several paper bags with her groceries. When asked if she was aware of the change to a "bagless check-out," she said she'd just learned about it from the cashier.

"I have the canvas bags at home, I've just forgotten about them," she said.

Next time she shops she says she will have to remember to bring them.

"Or use the boxes they have, which is fine," she said.

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