Plastic bags banned in New Jersey: now shoppers steal baskets from stores

New Jersey has banned plastic bags. That's why people steal food baskets. Writes about it Yahoo!.

Grocery shoppers walk away with the plastic baskets you find at the supermarket, a clear consequence of New Jersey's plastic bag ban that went into effect this spring.

“They just disappear,” said Louis Scaduto Jr., chief executive of Food Circus Super Markets in Middletown, which owns four Super Foodtown stores in Monmouth County. “Maybe the store will soon have to just get rid of them, we can’t afford to replace them.”

This doesn't just happen in Super Foodtown. At the Stop & Shop in Long Branch, baskets are rare. ShopRite in Freehold doesn't have them either.

“Like other retailers across the state, we have experienced the theft of our portable shopping carts, an unintended consequence of the plastic and paper bag ban,” Stop & Shop said in a statement.

In May, the state of New Jersey enacted the nation's strictest ban on plastic bags of any thickness, with the exception of plastic bags used for fresh vegetables, deli meats and baked goods. Paper bags are also prohibited in supermarkets and other stores with large grocery sections.

Customers were forced to bring their own bags to the store or buy reusable ones at the checkout.

The New Jersey Food Board, the trade group that represents the state's grocers, said shoppers "for the most part" were prepared for the single-use bag ban and followed the prescribed ban.

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Signs have appeared in stores reminding shoppers to bring their own bags or buy reusable ones. Other signs dealt with a different issue: plastic hand baskets that shoppers can carry around the store to pick up multiple items to checkout.

“Hand baskets must always remain inside the store,” read one of the signs at the Stop & Shop in Middletown.

Some clients listened. Others don't.

“We are aware of occasional reports of these baskets being stolen from stores,” said Linda Doherty, president and CEO of the New Jersey Food Board. "We view this as a brief, unintended consequence of the new state law."

Some grocers are ordering more while others are considering skipping baskets, Doherty said.

“Some stores are also putting up signs to remind shoppers to keep their baskets in the store and are using public address systems with similar messages,” Doherty said. “We think in most cases people just forgot to return them.”

This has happened in other states and municipalities with plastic bag bans, she said. “This is not a new trend,” she said.

ShopRite spokeswoman Karen O'Shea said some stores have experienced the theft of hand baskets following the ban on single-use bags. Some ShopRite stores have posted signs encouraging shoppers to leave their carts in the store.

"We hope that people who use our baskets remember to leave them in the store when they're done shopping so that baskets remain a resource for all of our customers," O'Shea said.