Not free bags

In the context of the charging for a bag when shopping in DC, I forgot to mention that two chains, the home furnishings and accessories company, Ikea, and the discount supermarket chain Aldi (owned by the same family that owns Trader Joe's) do not provide free bags, they charge.

Guardian photo by David Levene.

Aldi charges something like 25 cents per bag, which is about double the size of a plastic grocery bag (although this clearly un-updated webpage says its 10 cents--I think it's out of date because I've never seen a paper shopping bag at an Aldi store). Ikea charges 59 cents for their large blue shopping bag. (Although I wheedled one out of them at their booth at Artscape in Baltimore, stating how we had spent more than $1,500 on our Ikea kitchen cabinetry, plus we had to go to two different stores in one day [College Park, Dale City] in order to switch out one item for another, which was being discontinued.)

Interestingly enough, given this broad discussion, both are European companies. Ikea is based in Sweden and Aldi in Germany.