Sentry Foods clerk Katie Fraunfelder bags Carol McKeown's groceries in a reusable cloth mesh carrier that she brought with her to the store.
Reusable canvas bags are available for sale at the Sentry and other area grocery stores.
JANESVILLE — "Did you remember your bags?"
Someone suggested putting the reminder on signs in Woodman's parking lot, and Clinton Woodman, vice president of Woodman's Food Market, thinks that's an excellent idea.
How many of us find ourselves in the grocery checkout line only to remember we left our bags in the trunk?
But Woodman said people are getting into the habit. He's seen a huge change in consumer attitudes about recycling.
Woodman has been in the business for 20 years, and he remembers people asking cashiers to double-bag their groceries.
Then, about five years go, people started bringing in their own bags.
"We bag our groceries in whatever the customer wants," Woodman said.
He figures Woodman's in the last year has sold 50,000 to 75,000 reusable green bags at the Janesville store alone.
"It's been fantastic," Woodman said.
"We've seen a large decrease in the use of plastic and paper bags because of the canvas bags. Everything you hear from the customers, they love them."
The store sells the reusable bags for 79 cents or four for $3, which Woodman said is close to cost.
"They're a big hit overall—for us and the customers," Woodman said.
Woodman's pays about 4 cents for plastic bags and about 6 cents for paper bags.
Rob Terry, manager of Daniels Sentry Food Store on East Milwaukee Street, has noticed the same trend.
"It's a lifestyle," Terry said. "It's in our conscience, in our mindset … It's a habit-forming thing."
Twenty years ago, the store might have sold 50 insulated recyclable canvas bags a year, he recalled.
Now, Sentry sells about 25 large and small canvas bags a week.
"What we try to do is encourage reuse," Terry said.
The store offers a 5-cent refund per purchase on any paper bags or canvas bags reused and a 2-cent refund for plastic.
A plastic bag costs Sentry 2 1/2 cents. The store's sturdy paper bag costs 11 cents.
"What's nice is, people's habits are changing, and it's for the better," Terry said.
Both Woodman and Terry doubt that plastic bags will ever be eliminated. They are useful in the freezer sections and sometimes necessary in the vegetable and meat departments.
And both men prefer that the use of recyclable bags be encouraged rather than mandated.
Woodman said a ban could cause a backlash among consumers.
A ban "takes away people's choice and our ability to offer a choice to the consumer," Terry said.
"But at the same time, we all have to think about what to do with our resources."
Committee studies recycling options
A ban, education or recycling bins?
The Sustainable Janesville Committee will research those options as it prepares to make recommendations to the city council to discourage the use of plastic bags.
So far, the committee has studied what other cities have done and has asked staff to research the following options:
They are:
-- A ban on the plastic bags shoppers get at the checkout.
-- Mandatory recycling of plastic bags.
-- Voluntary recycling.
-- Limiting plastic bags to those that are recyclable.
-- Education and public awareness efforts.
One or more of the options could be recommended at the same time, said Tom McDonald, committee chairman and council member.
For instance, education and public awareness will be a part of any choice, McDonald said.
The city council asked the committee to research the issue as one of its first assignments.
"The committee wants to be very careful of what they send out—that what we send out is legal, that it's feasible, that it's cost effective," McDonald said.
McDonald didn't think committee members are leaning toward recommending a ban.
A ban could be politically divisive, but that's probably something the council should worry about and not the committee, McDonald said.
Another option would be a non-binding referendum question in April.
The committee should have the city staff's report by Dec. 2.