During that time I was MIA from the blog, LEGO began an eco-friendly initiative. (I mentioned this in my last post about the Earth Day build.) Among many things, was the phasing out of LEGO shopping bags from our local stores across all of North America.
I say it this way, because California and Washington area already “sans-shopping-bags” due to state laws. This is old hat to them. But for the rest of us peeps, we’ve got to get prepared!
Towards the end of month, you can expect to see your local LEGO store moving towards paper bags. The switch over will happen naturally as they run out of the current stash of LEGO shopping bags.
Are the new paper LEGO shopping bags free?
Sadly, no. The new paper bags will cost you 50 cents a piece. Some of you won’t mind that, but others who are into pinching pennies, like the hubs and I, will think twice about asking for a bag to carry our goods.
Is LEGO pocketing the 50 cents?
No, they aren’t! They will be donating the bag monies collected to local environmental charities in your area. This is a brand new program, so they are still working out the details. You may need to give them some slack as they identify which charities fit the bill for your area.
So what’s the solution when you make a big purchase?
Bring your own reusable bags! Fortunately, LEGO has several bags for purchase in stores.
Small bags are $2.99 or $1.25 with a $25 purchase.
Medium bags are $4.99 or $1.99 with a $50 purchase.
Large bags are $6.39 or $3.19 with a $100 purchase. (These are originally $7.99, so you might find the price I just mentioned go up after the sale is over.)
And you can always go the printed bag route. These, I believe, are the same size as the Large bags above, but only cost $5.99.
Oh, there’s one more I’ve seen on the regular. There is a LEGO canvas tote you can pick up on Amazon.
Finally, you could just get any ol’ regular bag… IKEA bags are well suited for carrying LEGOs, but there’s just something about placing your newly prized LEGOs in a bag that announces your love of LEGO, right?
I applaud LEGO for making this change to reduce the amount of unnecessary plastic in the world!
Likewise! I’ll admit it also makes me feel better about purchasing LEGO, knowing that I’m contributing a little less to the waste in the world.
So you just purchased plastic bricks, which are packaged in plastic bags, which are then put in a cardboard box and you applaud Lego for now charging you to carry out your pricey purchase in a bag which is free advertising of the environmentally unfriendly toys. Are you really contributing less waste in the world. Who is Lego fooling — the consumer.
They should NOT charge for bags until they have the charity set up in the area of the store! This is the first time I have heard anything about charity,It’s not the point of pinching pennies it’s the point that I dont believe for one minute that it’s going to charity. I have no problem paying for bags as I do at aldi’s the difference is aldi’s prices are low and that is one of the ways that they are able to keep them low lego on the other hand charges A fortune and they’re not happy with that. So concerned about the environment provide paper.