TRENTON, NJ – Never mind the piles of heavy-duty reusable bags piling up in your laundry room or garage because you always forget to bring them with you to go shopping, but New Jersey’s ridiculous plastic bag ban is leading to another problem.
Rampant theft of shopping baskets at grocery stores is on the rise. It’s gotten so bad that some stores are now applying anti-theft devices to their baskets to deter people from stealing them.
According to NJ.com, one Jersey Shore ShopRite store has run out of baskets and isn’t going to buy new ones, because they know they’re going to get stolen again.
Governor Phil Murphy’s plastic bag ban went into effect on May 4th and since then New Jerseyeans have been trying to cope with the ridiculous inconvenience of buying a shopping cart full of plastic-wrapped goods, produce and beverages, but not being able to get a plastic bag to put all of their other plastic wares into.
Instead of worrying about cradling an order full of groceries from the checkout to their car, customers are simply just taking the entire basket with them, most never returning them.
Store owners across the state can’t keep up with ordering new baskets, so many are just not ordering any more of them. The handheld basket might soon become a relic of New Jersey past, just like the plastic bag.
Some New Jersey Walmart stores are now putting anti-theft devices on their baskets.
Uline, a manufacturer of handheld shopping baskets sells baskets in lots of 12 for just under $8 per basket.