[tialaramex]

The "bag tax" normalises this. Twenty years ago, if I walked into a supermarket to buy one item I would assume I should take a bag (which was "free") and a receipt for the reason you give - it might look shady otherwise.

Today I shove it in my pockets and walk out the door. Because of the "bag tax" people don't think "Wow, that guy just stole that" or even "Crazy person, why not use a bag" they think "Oh yeah, good idea, no bag tax".

[mehrdadn]

It's possible, I'm not sure. I'll have to pay more attention to see if it's become normalized where I am. I can't seem to recall seeing people shoving things into their backpacks, but I haven't particularly been paying attention to this either.