The Cost of Bags
Ashleigh December 30th, 2008
Like many other Ballard residents I frequent the Ballard Market, it’s conveniently close and I’ve yet to be disappointed in their products or service. On my trip yesterday I noticed at the checkout that I had been credited 5 cents for bringing my cloth bag – and I commented on it to the checker. She smiled and told me something fascinating – every paper Ballard Market bag costs them 11 cents. So I started to calculate in my head – what does that add up to? How many customers pass through the store on any given day? Hundreds? Thousands? In the time I checked out, I would say about a half dozen people checked out as well, several of them carrying paper bags. From my estimation it would be reasonable to say one thousand bags leave the store daily, about ten bags every fifteen minutes. If they were all paper – that’s 11 cents per bag – the store is spending $110 daily on paper bags, or $40,150 annually – they could employ another full time employee at that amount! Of course all the bags leaving are probably not paper, there are also plastic bags – 3 cents per bag – but plastic is being phased out due to its negative impact on the environment. Still supposing some of the bags are plastic the Market is still looking to spend tens of thousands of dollars annually on bags. No …
