Say NO to plastic bags

uberzoldat

I use cotton shopping bags that my local health food shop sells for 50p each. They are stronger than any other bag I have used, and much better for the environment.

It's annoying the selective hearing some checkout operators have when I tell them I don't need a bag, do I need a giant carrier bag for one tin of sweetcorn!? :rolleyes:

linzibean

Well I found myself quite fired up about this.... and I talked to a few people, then talked to a couple of schools... and have found myself doing a little campaign about it I think it's my inner hippy coming out! I'm doing a talk at a school near me about recycling and hopefully giving out some re usable bags... which should be fun!

Crikey, I've become an overnight activist :rotfl:

Wig

I use a strong one from a French supermarket E'Leclerc

The tesco ones are flimsy and soon will wear out, I know they exchange them for new ones, but that's not how it should work! My French ones are strong and now two years old still look as good as new. Should they ever wear out the French supermarkets also replace them free of charge, but I can't see it wearing out ever.

lex

Primark let me take my clothes without a bag! Maybe I was one of the lucky ones - LOL.

My pet hate is those thin plastic bags that you are supposed to put 1 or 2 carrots in. I use Sainsburys bags for life, and put my loose veg in them, and as I do scan and pack, I stick the weighing sticker to the veg themselves. I guess a more environmental thing would be not to take the sticker either. But I could recycle them as they are paper....ho hum... Does make rescans interesting though, when your onion sticker has stuck itself to your carrots etc.

lex

pollys

I have a shopping bag and I love it, as I try and avoid supermarket shopping (I hate the places) I don't tend to have too much plastic waste. I get my fruit and veg from the local farm shop and they supply paper bags which are reused and then put in the compost bin.

Hermia

rlm wrote:

Someone was saying on the OS board that they have introduced a tax on plastic bags in Ireland. Now shops charge for them but apparently nobody seems to mind, people just take their own.

I asked an Irish friend about this as I had assumed that the public would have moaned (I'm sure they would here!) and she said everyone had just accepted it and started taking their own bags along.

Hermia

rackstar wrote:

I'm in my twenties and I don't think it's an "old lady" thing to carry a shopping bag.

I didn't like any of the eco shoppers I saw so I treated myself to a Cath Kidston shopper. I'm sure it's not enviromentally friendly in terms of what it's made of, but it's indestructible! I'm sure I could carry an elephant home from the shops without it breaking! I can see it lasting years.

Hermia

Hermia wrote:

I'm sure I could carry an elephant home from the shops without it breaking!

I, of course, was referring to the bag, not the elephant...

Chester_Draws

I was really surprised to read the comments on here, where sales assistants are virtually encouraging shoppers to have plastic bags.
No-one has stated/realised what a huge financial burden the expense of these bags is to a company.
I work in a retail unit, and we have appx 55,000 carrier bags delivered per month. The cost of these bags to the company is appx £340. This works out at over £5000 per year when the additional uplift for xmas is taken into account. This is for just 1 shop, multiply it by the chains total and it exceeds £2 million. No, its not a supermarket, their bill must exceed £10 million !!
We have signs in staff areas reminding the staff how much each carrier bag costs, and to ask "Do you NEED a carrier bag for your goods".
I could tell some horror stories of customer expectations, mostly they do not think what is happening to the planet.
I agree, bring in the 10p tax ........ it needs to hit to make people realise.

gromituk

But their marketing department might consider that they make more money out of the free advertising by people carrying their bags than the cost of the bags.

Sounds like your company has a very good policy.