Yes, but not a sale I have any choice in ((unless I do without a bag. See stained shirt, above). They’re doing it to be green. As I’ve said above, much of their packaging is non-biodegradeable. Could I deduct 5p for every instance of that?
I think giving people an incentive to not use plastic bags is stupid. I mean, I use them as garbage bags (for the bathroom…now I use actual garbage bags for the kitchen), so I actually need them, so there.
The coop we go to has - for years (coops being generally an eco-hippie thing to start with) given a discount for bringing your own bags. I have no idea what it is because when I bring my own bag they say “do you want the discount, or would you like to donate it to the food shelf?” I always donate my whatever small change amount it is.
Personally, I think charging for bags is a win win - better for the environment, the burden of the cost moves to the people who need it, I’m not dealing with piles of plastic and paper grocery bags - but I live in the American automotive culture, I just have the bags in my car. I can see that if I lived in a place where I walked/biked/bus carrying bags with my would be less convenient, particularly if I wasn’t the type to carry a large purse or bag with me.
I’m pretty sure they’re giving the money earnt from the M&S bags to charity. I think it’s pretty annoying too but usually because it serves me right for not remembering to bring one. I have been trying to bring my own since I saw some horrific pictures in one of the daily newspapers a few months ago including a whale with traces of 10+ separate carrier bags in his stomach.
On the other hand if you shop at an M&S with more than just the food section you could sneak to the clothes section where the bags are free to pay.
For fuck’s sake, it’s 5 pence. How long does that take you to earn? Even a minimum-wage burger jockey makes 5p in considerably less time than it took you to write that post.
Frankly, if you can afford M&S ready meals, then 5p shouldn’t even be a blip on the radar. (Is it just me, or when you walk into the M&S food hall, do you wonder if you’ve been transported 5 decades of hyperinflation into the future?)
You miss my point entirely: read my first and subsequent posts. (I can elucidate further if you wish, but I hope I stated and explained my position earlier).
Um, well, you could just not shop at their store, you know.
Well I assume that they don’t allow haggling, no. But again, if you don’t like their policies then you are free to shop somewhere else. It’s just a change in pricing, it’s not like they’re fixing the meat scale or something.
One one hand, there’s principles, on the other my greed. Hmm…principles or food, principles or food? [Homer moment]
One city I lived in “recycled” plastic bags by sending them to China.
Where they were dumped in a landfill. :smack:
I’m not aware of any stores that charge for bags around here. Safeway does give you a 3-cent per-bag credit if you bring your own, and Trader Joe’s gives you a ticket for a weekly $25 gift-card drawing if you use your own bags.
I know just how ya feel. I went to ASDA today and forgot the take my reusable cloth bag thingys (yes I believe that is the technical term for them!) so I thought thats fine Ill just use the free plastic ones you get. When I got to the checkout the place where the free bags usually sit were filled with the 5p bag for lift ones. If you want a free bag you have to ask for it which makes me feel like a world burning cheepo! I can kinda see how it is a good idea as it does encourage recycling yada yada yada but boy does it make me feel like poo!
Most stores here give a 5cent discount for every bag you bring (though we sometimes have to remind the cashier to punch that in!) A very few (Ikea among them) charge for the bags if you don’t have your own, but for grocery stores, those tend to be the low-end “no frills/no name” type of grocery stores where, presumably, you are already there to try and save money or don’t have any extra to spend, and so you’ll grab your own bags or use something from the pile of vegetable delivery boxes in the corner.
I like the look of Onya bags (and I think the ability to customize them could make an interesting school fund raiser, much better than another round of chocolate bars!) I have a bag from the McGill University Library which folds and zips up very conveniently. Folded up, it is maybe the size of a thin (1/2 cm thick) paperback book, and so it is quite easy to carry in my purse and/or school bag. It carries quite a lot of stuff and has lasted a year so far without any signs of wear. I hope to be able to pick up a few more this year… they really are that convenient!
We used to keep the reusable grocery store bags in our kitchen, but we’ve recently moved them to the shoe rack… we are more likely to see them and think of them there on the way out the door if we think we’ll swing by the grocery store after work. Of course, we have 2 cats and 2 litter boxes, so occasionally we just choose to take plastic in order to keep our litter-cleaning supplies up!
I’ll tell you all one thing I reckon you don’t realise…older ladies in certain African countries make very good use of our plastic carrier bags. When I went travelling around Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Malawi I often came across women carrying a Sainsburys or M+S carrier bag that they had got from travellers or people working out there…they carry their knitting in them so that they can walk around knitting at the same time. They particularly liked Sainsburys carrier bags because they were orange!
I think a plastic bag charity should be set up where the bags are sent to these women for their knitting…they’d love it.
Trust me, my Dad (who is the OP) really will Not just pay them the money.
I went to a convenience/grocery store at the Grand Canyon during our stay there last year. They gave me a 10% discount if I didn’t take a bag. I thought it was a great idea.
We have our own cloth bags that we use when we remember (which is about half the time). We also have a legitimate use for the plastic ones, as we scoop the cat poo into them. Also, my friend uses plastic bags for her mother’s diapers
I’ve never had a store charge me extra for bags; the price is built into everything.
When I lived in Germany I did get used to getting a discount for bringing my own bags.
Back here in the states, I’ve seen discounts for your own bags here and there. I used to enjoy riding my motorcycle to the store with my leather backpack and when the cashier asked “paper or plastic?” I’d toss 'em my leather backpack and say “fill 'er up!”
Vegetarians probably hate me, but tree huggers like me.
Since I didn’t see this point posted earlier:
“Going green” is the reason they give you; “Cutting costs” is the real reason for this. Businesses exist to make a profit; if they can get 5p out of you for using bags which they had to pay for to begin with, they will.
I keep gigantic blue Ikea bags in my car. They were 59c each, and two of them hold a weeks’ worth of groceries. I get the added bonus of not having so many damn plastic bags in my house! When I lived close enough to a grocery store to walk, I carried these from my apartment to the store. It got heavy, but I’m relatively in shape, so it wasn’t too bad. Walking the half-mile home from the store was annoying, but at least I onl had one or two bags with me.
I’d do without the bag, as you did in the OP. Heck, I actually don’t take a bag most days anymore, since I’m on my motorcycle and have to repack it all into saddlebags anyways!
The two stores I do most of my grocery shopping at do give a 5 cent credit per bag you don’t use. I generally try to make sure I have a few reusable bags tucked inside my purse. But I’d be pretty miffed if they charged me 5 cents per bag of theirs. How the fetch am I supposed to get my groceries home otherwise? So I do see the OP’s point.
When I’m just stopping for one or two items, I always say I don’t need a bag. Half the time, they stuff it into one anyway. And there was one memorable day at a Target when I handed the guy my two canvas bags, and he proceeded to stick them into a plastic bag along with the items I was purchasing. :rolleyes: I had to tell him that I wanted him to please put my groceries into my reusable bags.
The biggest problem with plastic bags isn’t recycling, it is that people will throw them out as litter, and because most plastic bags are made of non-biodegradable polyethylene, they end up in lakes, streams, and oceans where they interfere with aquatic life, often to severe detriment (i.e. whales eating non-digestable plastic bags assuming them to be jellyfish).
Copper and some other metals are also cheaper to recycle; arguably iron is pretty close, too.
Stranger
I tried to cry one tiny tear for you, NineToTheSky, but it evaporated long before it reached the ground. You have only yourself to blame, on so many different levels.
We did have a thread in which that was repeatedly baldly asserted, yes.