Beginning last Wednesday, the city of Portland instituted a 5-cent fee on plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores. Longfellow Books on Monument Square is clearly neither of these (although we suppose books are food for thought, so maybe they’re groceries in a metaphorical sense; as far as we know, the ordinance does not encompass metaphors). But I digress.
On Day 1 of the new ordinance, Longfellow sent its customers an email announcing its own new policy, effective that very day: Henceforth, customers who carry their own bag to the store will get 10 cents off their purchases. “We applaud the effort to move Portland to a greener and more sustainable future,” the email said, “and we want to help lead the community toward a plastic bag-free future.”
As of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jack Marrie, a bookseller at the store, said that thus far Longfellow Books had distributed bag refunds totaling 20 cents. “It’s an affordable hit,” he elaborated on the email, “and an opportunity to leverage, to get on the bandwagon, for what we think is a pretty good idea.”
We applaud Longfellow for jumping on the bagwagon (cue bad pun alert), in the best possible way.
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