Gaia Power
I went shopping today. This is never a pleasant experience, but needs must and I didn’t stock up for a nuclear winter before Christmas. Since the car park at the local J. Sainsbury was full, I ambled round to the Waitrose. It’s always curious shopping there, because I never feel like I need to get out of there after three minutes in the shop. It’s almost like it’s not quite a supermarket.
But the best part was when they asked if I wanted bags afterwards. Waitrose still make proper plastic bags, ones that haven’t started to disintegrate by the time I get home. I have an enormous collection of old plastic bags that I re-use for all sorts of lugging duties, although I very rarely remember to take bags with me when I go shopping.
But Waitrose bags rarely wind up going straight into the bin. They get reused over and over and over, whereas the rubbish from Sainsbury or Tesco quite often don’t make it home intact. Part of the problem is the feeling of guilt that they instil in you when you ask for bags, the condescending look at the man who is single-handedly destroying the earth. Waitrose also ask you, and encourage parsimony by not dishing out 40 bags when you only need three (frequently I have to ask for more!) but they don’t tut. And even when I fill them to a point which makes them difficult to carry, they rarely tear. Sainsbury bags are particularly terrible, I’ve lost count of the times their flimsy bags have come apart before I’ve even got them loaded in the car.
And so I have to ask, who benefits from this pretence of caring for the the environment? All the supermarkets sell thick bags, but you’d need to spend several pounds on a sufficient number to carry a month’s groceries. It’s not much in the scheme of things, but it’s pure profit to the retailer. All this nonsense has allowed the supermarkets to cut down on the number (and the quality!) of the bags they provide, all leading to a very handy improvement in profitability. But does it help the environment? I don’t think it does, because the poor quality of these bags renders them unfit for reuse – often, they are unfit for even a single use! And so they go straight into the bin, or recycling box, from whence your friendly council takes all the waste and drops it into the same landfill.
And of course, the long-suffering consumer is made to feel guilty for spending money at the shops, for daring to want a reliable, convenient way of getting their purchases home.
I wonder if we’ll ever learn to stand up for ourselves.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I personally like using the big cloth bags that you can buy in the supermarket. It has nothing to do with environmentalism though, all to do with practicalities. I can carry everything in half a dozen bags rather than 20 small plastic ones – less trips from the car to the house when we get home – and the wife even orders everything ‘by bag’ at the checkout as she gets upset with me mixing bathroom purchases with foodstuffs for some bizarre reason.
On the other hand, when we did use plastic bags every single one was used in our two small rubbish bins in the kitchen and my office and never once was a bag simply thrown out. We now buy rolls of 40 of better quality complete with drawstring so, perversely, I am now doing more damage to the environment than if I’d stuck to using the cheap-o plastic ones. Barmy but, as you say, it may all just a ploy to get more money – money for the cloth bags then a pack of expensive drawstring bags every couple of weeks for the bins.
“Part of the problem is the feeling of guilt that they instil in you when you ask for bags, the condescending look at the man who is single-handedly destroying the earth.”
I never feel any guilt at all.
In fact, when I demand a bag and see the pursed lips of the scannertart start to pucker, I feel a warm glow of satisfaction, and give her my most triumphant smile…
You are right about Waitrose, though. Never, ever had anything even approaching bad service in there.
Norman, equally significant for the supermarket is the reduction in costs for not having to provide as many bags at no charge.
JuliaM, thank you for that lovely idea. I have my new year’s resolution!
The shops still give out plastic bags over there – how quaint.
One of our supermarket chains gave up on them over 10 years ago – at least in my part of France. You bought solid dependable, reusable plastic bags that were replaced free of charge when you handed in the old ones. They were so good I still have some of the first ones that I use for carrying tools around.
It has got to such a state that the only place you can get the disposable bags is the French end of a British chain of hardware stores.
I agree with every word of this and every comment so far. Blimey.
Here’s something for the globalist neoliberals to suck on. Waitrose is a cooperative owned by the members, it being part of JLP. If you want to know what the customers and staff of a JLP-run world would be like, shop there. It’s terrific.
When the supermarkets were all nabbed for misleading product information three years ago, all but two cried ‘Foul! Not Guilty!’ The exceptions were Waitrose and the Coop.
Waitrose service isn’t Stepford Wife service, it’s service with a real meaning that hasn’t been taught by some half-wittock telling the staff to be ‘customer facing’: they know there’s nowhere else to face.
Although I’m less of a warming-sceptic than most of you, I 100% endorse condemnation of the deckchair-rearrangement involved in all this recycling by numbers and obsession with reusable bags. We use the disposable bags, and recycle our own stuff (and them) in a way that quite deliberately ignores all these potty edicts about what goes where.
Great piece Thadders. There is an alternative to greed and competition. It’s called competition and cooperation, and accounts for our success as a species.
A bas les fonctionnaires!
YM x
I once unwisely bought two huge piles of English language books in Jersey, cheap in Boots, priceless in the winter Dordogne.
Next morning I remembered that I was a foot passenger with an already overflowing suitcase due on the St Malo ferry…
I sped into Marks and Sparks and purchased two of their ‘natural linen carrier bags’ – £1 each at the food till.
I have them still, much admired with their free trade motif, tres chic in this Marks and Sparks-less land.
They fold up to nothing, fly round the washing machine on a regular basis, and carry any amount of weight.
Good old Marks.
happy new year everyone
enjoy……..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0TzRnJ0j_k&feature=related
Just back from ASDA where they give out carrier bags in vast quantities as if the world of Eco has passed them by. Mind you most of everything has passed by the customers, who look like extras from Jeremy Kyle. Thank god I only have to go once a year.
I think ASDA did stop just around the time the ecoweenies were all bleating about it but I noticed a few weeks ago they were back to normal. Hopefully, that’s not just for Christmas.
For sheer self-righteousness, W.H. Smith [1] are hard to beat. You don’t get a bag unless you pay for it – even for a greetings card.
Even M&S – food department excepted – don’t carry things to such extremes.
[1] The staff (kids mostly) are probably trained to just shrug off the grumbling by customers.