The two plastic bag habits by grocery stores that annoy me most
Plastic bags. The nemesis of the environmentally-minded. They are an old issue but they are still a big issue. And there are two things about them in particular that make me want to scream.
.. But first, let me please preface this by saying that honestly, I could live in a world with disposable plastic shopping bags and not feel the need to go on a crusade. I get that people use them as rubbish bin liners and without them just end up buying plastic bin liners anyway. And I don’t resent people that re-use them in that way. It’s what I do. Mostly because even though I try to remember to say “I don’t need a bag, thanks!”, I sometimes forget and suddenly all my purchases are being put into one and I don’t always have the energy to ask them to take the stuff OUT of the bag. But the stats say that only 3% of plastic shopping bags are ever re-used so the bin liner argument probably isn’t grounds to keep them. But alas, this isn’t even what pisses me off about single use shopping bags.
Here is my first major pet peeve about them –
- Is it really necessary for merchants to put ONE SINGLE ITEM into a bag? I mean, is it really that much harder to hold a bottle of juice than to hold a bag holding a bottle of juice?
I mean if I was buying a big black dildo or something, I’d be all for it. Bag that shit up! But juice?? My favourite phrase in the world is “would you like a bag?” because it at least gives you a chance to think about it and be like, “oh duh, no I don’t need a bag for this one single thing”. Or if you’re a girl, you might think to yourself, “My purse is gigantic. I might as well put these two lip glosses I just bought into my purse instead of the TINY plastic bag that they’ll give me” .. because let’s face it, you’re NEVER going to use that tiny, useless bag again because it’s way too small to serve any kind of practical purpose. Nope, you’ll just throw it away as soon as you get home. Of course you imagine it’ll go to a landfill like it’s meant to but there’s a good chance it’ll fly off the back of the garbage truck on the way there. I’ve seen sooooo many bags fly off garbage trucks and I’ve seen soooo many animals with bits of plastic bags inside them. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
And here’s another thing that just kills me –
2. Is it really necessary for merchants to wrap “wet” items in separate bags to save your other items from the moisture?
Often I bring a re-usable bag to a shop and will buy something like a bottle of coke. The merchants almost always start putting the coke into a plastic bag to “save” my re-usable bag from the condensation. This happened to me just the other day and the conversation went a little something like this:
“oh I’ll just put that in my bag here”
“but it’s wet, I’ll just wrap it up for you”
“no it’s ok, I don’t mind”
“you don’t want a bag?”
“no, it’s ok”
“you sure?”
“yeah, I’ll be fine”
“oooohhh kaaaaaayyy”
Ummmm. Hello, have you not considered that I brought my own bag because I HATE PLASTIC BAGS??!!! I mean I get that I’m not in the Pacific North West anymore and there is a very different culture here around the environment but I’m sorry, a tiny bit of moisture won’t hurt anything but plastic bags do .. all the time! Enough already! I’ve realised that the wrapping cold items in separate bags thing is considered good service but it just drives me totally insane. The coke bottle incident happened at my local convenience store which is about 200 metres from the Pacific ocean! It just kiiiiiiiiiiiiills me.
Will we ever wake up?