Bring your own bag campaign launched by Halifax grocer

TwoHalifax-area grocery stores are telling customers to "B.Y.O.B." — but they're not talking about booze.

Pete's Frootique,owned by greengrocer Pete Luckett, plans tostart charging shoppers five cents for every bag they pack with goods in September.

It will be the first store in the province to do so.

Jeff Supple, themanager of the Pete's Frootique store in Bedford, said the idea is to encourage shoppers to bring their own bags, whether they're plastic or not.

"You could use Superstore bags, Sobeys bags, you could bring a suitcase, you could bring a pillowcase," Supple said Monday.

"Even if you don't want to pay for the bag we can supply a box. So it's not to get the five cents as much as discourage the plastic."

Shoppers at their two outlets use about 50,000 bags every week, Supple said. About 10 per cent of their customers already bring their own bags.

He said every nickel that shoppers pay for the bagswill go to a committee designed to make Pete's Frootique an eco-friendly place.