In Light of Plastic Bag Tax, LaBonne’s Supports Local Education

Looking to gauge the true feeling of residents in response to the state’s recently enacted plastic bag tax, State Rep. Joe Polletta took a walk down Main St., then a drive around the district where he was able to stop into local stores and talk directly with business owners and customers.

Rep. Polletta said he encountered plenty of people who had concerns about the costs of switching to paper or reusable bags for consumers and businesses, and many complained about not having reusable bags handy at all times. Some were upset the state imposed another new tax instead of just banning the bags outright, he said.

Still, he said he was pleasantly surprised to hear that some local businesses found creative alternatives to help ease customers through the transition by providing soy-based bags or temporarily handing out free paper bags, and family-owned supermarket chain LaBonne’s even found a way to help children in the community by donating half of the cost of the tax to school programs. For every reusable bag brought into their stores, LaBonne’s, with locations in Woodbury, Watertown and Salisbury, will donate a nickel to local school systems.

“I know I shouldn’t be surprised because the LaBonnes have always been supportive and incredibly-giving members of our community, but I was blown away by their generosity to donate five cents for each reusable bag brought into their stores to local education systems,” Rep. Polletta said. “They took a negative and turned it into a positive that will undoubtedly have an impact on children in Watertown, Woodbury and Salisbury.”

Previously, LaBonne’s offered a $.05 credit to customers for bringing in reusable bags. When the bag tax was implemented, Robert LaBonne III said he reached out to more than 13,000 customers via email and spoke with hundreds of customers in the stores to see how they felt about instead using that money to bolster school programs.

“We thought about this, and we said the state’s going to be collecting money off of this, how do we benefit our local community more?” Robert LaBonne III, said. “When we realized most of our customers aren’t concerned about a five cent credit on their order we took that credit and instead of giving it to the customer decided to pool that money and donate it to the local school systems.”

The money is slated to be distributed quarterly.