Photo by Peter McCrady

Rules promote reusable totes brought in by customers

Now that the dust has settled from the 2013 rollout of Austin's single-use bag ban, some businesses said they are beginning to get used to the ordinance.

"It's a big change in the way we do business," said Leslie Sweet, director of public affairs for H-E-B.

Sweet said H-E-B has invested in new bag racks and more than 20,000 hours of training for its employees.

To help customers with the switch, H-E-B sells reusable bags and started Free Bag Friday giveaways on the third Friday of every month.

In March 2012, Austin City Council passed an ordinance that banned the use of single-use plastic and paper carryout bags that went into effect last March. Bags still available under the ordinance include reusable bags made from durable material, handled plastic bags thicker than 4 mil and handled paper bags made from at least 40 percent recycled materials.

Some exceptions to the ordinance include laundry and newspaper bags, some restaurant takeout bags and in-store bags such as bulk food bags.

Craig Staley, owner and founder of Royal Blue Grocery, a local grocery store, said the store has easily adapted to the policy change.

"In 2012, when we knew [the ordinance] was imminent basically, we went ahead and got rid of plastic bags," Staley said.

Before the ban, Royal Blue Grocery used the same kind of cheap, disposable bag that most larger grocery stores were using, Staley said, but making the switch proved to be an easy transition.

"Most of our customers walk out with what they're getting in their hands," he said. "We don't have carts and big bags."

Before the bag ban went into effect, Royal Blue handed out reusable bags for free to customers to help them get used to the city ordinance and also to have a ready solution.

"Customers do miss those bags because they are so quick and easy," Staley said. "For us it was just about offering up a better solution and getting people used to it. We still use paper handled bags just like big grocery stores do, so that didn't really change for us."

Raquel Dadomo, brand manager for Wheatsville Food Co-op, said the paper bags offered in the store were already in compliance before the bag ban ordinance went into place, and the plastic bags once offered at the store were rarely used.

"Overall we were pretty happy with the idea [of the bag ban]," Dadomo said. "It had been something that was fully in alignment with what we were doing as a co-op anyway. We were for it."

Dadomo said the store continues to offer the paper bags to customers as well as low-cost reusable bags that customers can purchase.

To help promote reusable bags, even before the ban was in effect, Dadomo said the co-op offers a 5 cent refund to customers who use their own bags or containers when shopping. The refund can either be deducted from their total, or customers can apply the savings to the featured nonprofit in Wheatsville's Community Action Nonprofit Group. In 2013, the company gave out $18,830 in bag refunds.