It’s amazing how small an incentive can change behavior. As of January 1st, my county imposed a 5 cent tax for every bag you get from a grocery store, a department store, etc.

Now, 5 cents isn’t a lot of money. Even if you are doing a huge grocery shop, it’s not going to be even an additional dollar added to your bill.

But I went grocery shopping Friday evening. Within 2 weeks of the tax going into effect, well over half the people I saw in the store either had reusable bags with them or had brought plastic or paper bags from home to reuse.

It seems that 5 cents a bag was enough to get people to change their behavior. And for those who forget or who don’t change their behavior, the money collected goes to clean up the extra trash generated by all those bags.

It’s amazing how little of an incentive it takes to create a behavior change. What other behaviors might it be worth trying to change?