No more bags

[AurumPunzel]

I don't consider 99 cents a large fee. The world needs to change and we as humans need to adapt. Disney made a choice and consumers can vote with their wallet, I bet that sales will not decrease.

It is large when you consider that the only other stores charging so much for a bag tends to be big box wholesalers and IKEA, both of which offer easier means of carrying your shopping out bagless, and when most other stores in those municipalities with bag ordinances charge the bare minimum required for a bag, e.g. 10¢ in San Francisco for paper or 2.25mil/57µm ban-compliant thick plastic.

Also, most of the plastic pollution isn't coming out of Western countries, but from developing/economically-emerging Asian and African countries who have very poor waste management regimes and huge population growth, such as China and Indonesia. Even efforts in Western countries aren't going to make a huge dent in the 90% of the ocean's plastic waste problem, so I think efforts should be more focused on the real sources of the waste problem and for the waste management sector and municipalities to stop exporting their waste and process it all domestically, which can easily generate domestic jobs and spark a massive recycling revolution, which is what I want to see. A so-called 'Goldilocks solution' where we can achieve the goal of saving the environment while maintaining convenience is far better than going from one extreme to another, because there's always going to be unintended environmental consequences associated with phaseouts and bans.

 

[tobikaye]

Just FYI; I was just at my local Disney outlet store here in NJ and made a small purchase. The cast member gave me a plastic bag with no questions asked and no comments about there being no more bags in the future...not sure what that means but maybe the powers that be have rethought the plan to eliminate plastic bags?

FYI: I was at my local Disney outlet store, here in OH, on Sunday, and they do not have plastic bags any longer. I had forgotten my bag, so I did buy the 99 cent bag since I need a couple more just for non-grocery shopping and I am feeling too lazy to make my own right now.

 

[Pkltm]

It is large when you consider that the only other stores charging so much for a bag tends to be big box wholesalers and IKEA, both of which offer easier means of carrying your shopping out bagless, and when most other stores in those municipalities with bag ordinances charge the bare minimum required for a bag, e.g. 10¢ in San Francisco for paper or 2.25mil/57µm ban-compliant thick plastic.

Also, most of the plastic pollution isn't coming out of Western countries, but from developing/economically-emerging Asian and African countries who have very poor waste management regimes and huge population growth, such as China and Indonesia. Even efforts in Western countries aren't going to make a huge dent in the 90% of the ocean's plastic waste problem, so I think efforts should be more focused on the real sources of the waste problem and for the waste management sector and municipalities to stop exporting their waste and process it all domestically, which can easily generate domestic jobs and spark a massive recycling revolution, which is what I want to see. A so-called 'Goldilocks solution' where we can achieve the goal of saving the environment while maintaining convenience is far better than going from one extreme to another, because there's always going to be unintended environmental consequences associated with phaseouts and bans.

I fully respect that you have your own opinion, and please feel free to continue to share it. I have my own and quite frankly I do what I can to eliminate plastics in the landfills in my community. I fully support businesses that also do their part. We can differ on opinion on what we consider to be a large or small cost. I have worked for retail companies my entire life and I currently order supplies, in my community quality paper bags actually cost more than plastic so most retailers do not provide it to be an alternative. My household does our part with bags, straws, recycling, composting, growing food etc. Quite simply I do what I can and I encourage others to as well.

 

[AurumPunzel]

I fully respect that you have your own opinion, and please feel free to continue to share it. I have my own and quite frankly I do what I can to eliminate plastics in the landfills in my community. I fully support businesses that also do their part. We can differ on opinion on what we consider to be a large or small cost. I have worked for retail companies my entire life and I currently order supplies, in my community quality paper bags actually cost more than plastic so most retailers do not provide it to be an alternative. My household does our part with bags, straws, recycling, composting, growing food etc. Quite simply I do what I can and I encourage others to as well.

Don't get me wrong, I do my own bit as well, mostly by reusing the plastic bags, takeout trays from Chinese restaurants and recycling as much as I can where facilities exist, but since I'm pro-plastic (and pro-progress in plastics recycling), I'm more in favour of the plastics industry evolving to producing greener plastics that have all the advantages of existing petroplastic, but without the negative environmental consequences, and for advancement in plastics recycling that is self-sufficient (with no exporting to other countries), sustainable and more creative in ways of repurposing the post-consumer recycled plastics for more worthwhile products such as building blocks for building homes in developing countries. I honestly think Disney are virtue-signalling on the whole plastics issue, which, as I mentioned previously, ignores the fact that a lot of their product packaging still contains more plastic than simply the bags, and that they should address that by switching to bioplastic for windowed packaging, and eliminating those plastic ties and grommets that are definitely single-use.

 

[LizzyS]

I honestly don't have a problem with this as I'm always aggravated at the waste that packaging of any kind creates in our environment.

 

[AurumPunzel]

I honestly don't have a problem with this as I'm always aggravated at the waste that packaging of any kind creates in our environment.

The merchandise packaging is more of a problem, especially with dolls and figures. When I unboxed my Tangled: The Series deluxe doll set last year when a CM friend of mine gave me an F&F voucher, which I used on it, I was disgusted at the phenomenal amount of plastic ties and grommets there were in the packaging, not to mention moulded pieces of plastic present to keep the dolls' shape in the box, so while the bags can be reused and recycled (again, where facilities exist and if your municipality recycles them), the packaging cannot, and so I ended up with one binbag full of the pieces of plastic the packaging contained. Honestly, I think Disney should actually review their packaging more than the bags.

 

[LizzyS]

The merchandise packaging is more of a problem, especially with dolls and figures. When I unboxed my Tangled: The Series deluxe doll set last year when a CM friend of mine gave me an F&F voucher, which I used on it, I was disgusted at the phenomenal amount of plastic ties and grommets there were in the packaging, not to mention moulded pieces of plastic present to keep the dolls' shape in the box, so while the bags can be reused and recycled (again, where facilities exist and if your municipality recycles them), the packaging cannot, and so I ended up with one binbag full of the pieces of plastic the packaging contained. Honestly, I think Disney should actually review their packaging more than the bags.

YES

I bought a Wonder Woman doll last year and the packaging for her was insane (not Disney, obviously)! I am all for ALL industries to reduce packaging across the board, as much as possible.

 

[AurumPunzel]

YES

I bought a Wonder Woman doll last year and the packaging for her was insane (not Disney, obviously)! I am all for ALL industries to reduce packaging across the board, as much as possible.

Even the supermarkets here in the UK already have pledged to do so. One has gone as far as to switching to paper and bioplastics by the 2020s, while the others are expanding their closed-loop recycling systems to encompass product packaging in addition to LDPE/PVC pallet wrapping, and switching to plastics that can easily be recycled at municipal level, or in the absence of expanded municipal recycling, in the stores.

 

[MinnieMyers]

Seems to be everywhere.

 

[AurumPunzel]

Seems to be everywhere.

Not necessarily. Outside of ordinance areas, the only other major US store I've heard are planning a phaseout is Kroger, and yet people are more likely going to bring their own bags to a supermarket, as opposed to a mall store, and even they'll still offer a cheap option for a bag should one forget or makes an unplanned trip to quickly grab some groceries while not having a bag handy. All my Disney reusables tend to only get used in my local supermarket.

 

[MinnieMyers]

Sorry, I meant all Disney stores

 

[AurumPunzel]

Sorry, I meant all Disney stores

Except in the UK, some European countries where the Disney Stores still use plastic (e.g. Spain, Denmark and Sweden - others use paper instead), China and Japan, despite Japan's bad habit of gratuitously dishing out bags with bags, although Japan has less of a waste problem thanks to their cultural habit of cleanliness, and thus having some of the most excellent recycling rates of any country in Asia. Here in Europe, most stores already charge for bags, which kind of makes 'going green' redundant, so as far as I know, they're not following suit. However, we only just got the shopDisney rebrand, and they've yet to update the bags and receipts to reflect that, so it's unknown if they'll do that here too or they'll just maintain the status quo, which is more likely since Europe is by far already leading the way in reducing plastic wastage, and Disney Store UK has been charging for bags long before the bag tax came into force starting with Wales in 2011.

 

[jo-jo]

I recently ordered 4 items online from a store (not disney). It came to my house in 4 boxes. And each box the item was the size of a book in a box the size of microwave plus packing.

A few weeks later I had a need to place another order. Again the order contained 4 or 5 items. For shipping, it said, Mon I would get item one,
Tues item two and so forth. I thought that was nuts. I changed it to store pickup. When to the store 5 days later and the items were still in multiple boxes. Such a waste.

 

[AurumPunzel]

I recently ordered 4 items online from a store (not disney). It came to my house in 4 boxes. And each box the item was the size of a book in a box the size of microwave plus packing.

A few weeks later I had a need to place another order. Again the order contained 4 or 5 items. For shipping, it said, Mon I would get item one,
Tues item two and so forth. I thought that was nuts. I changed it to store pickup. When to the store 5 days later and the items were still in multiple boxes. Such a waste.

That's the thing. People seem to focus more on plastic rather than paper, and what people often forget about is how resource-hungry and carbon-intensive paper production is, yet they always pontificate on its natural biodegradable properties despite conveniently forgetting the negative environmental impact paper has compared to plastic.

 

[UncleMike101]

That's the thing. People seem to focus more on plastic rather than paper, and what people often forget about is how resource-hungry and carbon-intensive paper production is, yet they always pontificate on its natural biodegradable properties despite conveniently forgetting the negative environmental impact paper has compared to plastic.

And that is precisely why the switch was made from paper years ago.
The tree huggers were having conniptions over the "destruction of nature" by the paper industry so the switch was made to the more "environmentally friendly", and much cheaper, plastics.
It appears that the majority of the current crop of environmental warriors weren't even alive when that switch was made so they have no experience to help them realize how counter productive it is to want to suddenly jump back to the paper alternative.
Perhaps some of them could put their boundless energy into projects to develop biodegradable plastics.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

Interesting - I was in at Disney Store Outlet in Gurnee and we got a bag this weekend. No one mentioned no bags moving forward.

I was in the same store too and about 3 weeks ago I was told that would be the last bag as they were eliminated them. They must have had a big stockpile left.

 

[AurumPunzel]

And that is precisely why the switch was made from paper years ago.
The tree huggers were having conniptions over the "destruction of nature" by the paper industry so the switch was made to the more "environmentally friendly", and much cheaper, plastics.
It appears that the majority of the current crop of environmental warriors weren't even alive when that switch was made so they have no experience to help them realize how counter productive it is to want to suddenly jump back to the paper alternative.
Perhaps some of them could put their boundless energy into projects to develop biodegradable plastics.

Especially when they all soon realise the production impact of paper, and that the majority of their reusable bags require 30-50 times (or even 131 times if cotton) the amount of energy to produce (thus higher CO2), and require shipping all the way from China, while ignoring issues China has, so I'd rather there were progress in plastics than us having to go back to Victorian times just to solve a problem that's 90% caused by countries where the 10 rivers are contributing the most waste.

 

[All about me]

I guess I could just start hauling my very old folding shopping cart with me eveywhere....

 

[AurumPunzel]

I guess I could just start hauling my very old folding shopping cart with me eveywhere....

Or, failing that, do what the tourists in Jersey Gardens do and use a mahousive suitcase. It's common practice there since tourists would often go on massive shopping sprees in the various outlets, and would use them to amalgamate all of their purchases in.

 

[Penmac]

Forgive me if I missed a post about this already, but my local Disney store said that beginning this week they will no longer have bags. I was told to either bring a reusable bag when I shop or I can purchase one at checkout (.99 I think). The reason given was that they are "going green." I'm all for green initiatives, but this one seems pretty odd to me.

I purchased some items at our local Disney store in MA in August and received the regular bags. Just went the other day for my son's birthday gift and they said bags were gone, so it must have been a September change-over for our location. Will this happen at the parks too?

Also, I am all for recycling and going green. But, I love how Disney conveniently uses this noble act as a huge money making scheme! This is all about profits. Period.