The Woodstock Farmers Market has cut its use of disposable grocery bags nearly in half with its new Bring Your Own Bag program
Starting in April of this year the Woodstock Farmers Market decided that if a customer did not have their own reusable grocery bag they would have to pay between 5 and 10 cents for one.
Those proceeds would go to the Woodstock Food Shelf.
And despite a couple of grumbles, Amelia Rappaport – a partner in the Woodstock Farmers Market who started the initiative – says it's been successful at curbing the use of single use bags.
“We've been able to donate about $1,500 to the food shelf just from those nickels and dimes. And we've purchased about 36,000 fewer bags over that same period of time” she said.
Rappaport hopes it will be a model for other Vermont businesses.
Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco are some of the cities that haveofficially banned the use of plastic bagsaround the country.
