Ikea is going to start charging people in the USA for plastic bags. They are hoping that the small fee will reduce the use of the bags by 50% in the USA from 70 million to 35 million plastic bags. That is a ton of bags.

They are hoping that people will start using reusable bags more often which will save the landfills, save oil use (in the production of the bags, and in general make the planet a little better place.

I have been trying to decide how I feel about this. Am I annoyed that a store that makes Ikea’s kind of loot is going to start charging me to buy their junk? Am I happy that somebody that makes Ikea’s kind of loot is doing something that should be friendly to the environment?

In the end, I decided to be happy about the decision. One of the things that helped me come to this decision is realizing that my car comes complete with a trunk. There really isn’t any reason that I couldn’t just dump the items from the cart directly into the trunk. Do I even really need the bags at all? Plus, most of the stuff that I have bought at Ikea has been something the size of a cabinet or bed. You never get bags for that stuff anyway.

Bring it on Ikea. Charge enough to make people not want to use the bags. Maybe you could start selling some nice trunk dividers to help keep everything from rolling around on the drive home.

If you want some more information on how many bags the world uses and what financial and environmental costs come with that, check out this article about Living plastic free. She is very excited by the decisions Ikea is making.