Next time you go to the grocer, tell them just throw it in the bag. Any bag.
Florida environmental officials have announced they are backing off a potential ban of throwaway paper and plastic bags at grocery stores, which ensures that you will have to speak to the cashier at least once during your checkout experience.
Be glad you still have to answer the question, paper or plastic?
The ban would have come after a bag tax was imposed on any customer who didn't own their own trendy cotton or disposable bag for their items. Many grocery stores already offer the more environmentally friendly bags, but they are optional for customers.
Looks like that will still be the case.
Environmental groups are all for a plastic bag ban, but the Department of Environmental Protection concluded it would be best if the legislature chose from a smorgasbord of choices to limit the effects of plastic and paper bags on the environment. Florida would have been the first state to ban bags altogether.
"It's not about mandates and requirements," State Sen. Lee Constantine said. "It's about changing habits in ways that people see as just as easy and beneficial."
