To Plastic Bag or Not to Plastic Bag
The 2000’s are swiftly becoming a decade of complete and utter “green” awareness gluttonous overload – and rightly so, in my opinion. In the endeavor to save our planet from waste and pollution, I’d rather err on the side of over- aggression rather than palatable apathy. It’s a bit like taking care of a baby. Is there a point where you can be too careful or where being too careful will harm the infant? Probably not.
So amidst all the “green” madness stands the lowly plastic bag. People just love the things. Why is beyond me. Is it convenience, apathy or just plain ignorance? It’s kind of hard to tell and highly likely to be a mixture of all three aspects.
Whilst out shopping, I will routinely see other shoppers with their canvas bags – avoiding the plastic bags like the plague. Then I will see others stuffing groceries into the plastic bags like they grow on trees and are the best thing since sliced bread. I wonder though. Why do these supermarkets that encourage you to buy the re-usable canvas bags even offer the “disposable” plastic ones? Why the fork-tongued marketing? The buck has to stop somewhere.
It’s very simple. Plastic bags are a pain to recycle and cost so much to even take on such a task, that no right-minded factory or business would even attempt such a project. Seems to me that it would make a lot more sense to just stop making the silly things. Each supermarket should give all loyal customers up to three canvas bags per family to get the ball rolling and get shot of all the plastic ones. Done. Nice and easy. Clean and simple.
Why not contact your local supermarket with the suggestion? Etablog would be interested in starting a petition based on our reader support. Let us know if you are interested in this scheme and we can get something started.
I like this idea. I think you might be on to something here. We shop a Jewel food store in our neighborhood. I see 25% of the shoppers using the canvas bags and 75% using the plastic bags. The canvas bags hold so much more for one.
I would be interested in pitching the idea to my local market but, they also sell their own bags. So they are in the money to market their bags. Maybe by giving away 1 bag might work. I can’t see giving away 3.
I think that they might be more apt to offer this to their loyal, regular customers. We regularly get discount coupons and in my view they could even cut back on one of those to budget for this type of promotion. They could even just add it to their marketing budget because as you indicated they usually have their name advertised on the sides. Here’s a quick piccie of what ours look like and they do hold quite a bit. We only need two for a full weeks shopping.
[...] Those of you who have been following my blog will have read an earlier anecdote in this category, (Green Bionics), about the lowly plastic carrier bag. [...]