Musings from the Merse
Saturday, January 27, 2007
SAVING THE WORLD IN MORRISONS
You have to start somewhere.
So I very carefully took my 'bag for life' in one hand and the metal basket in the other. I selected the organic tomatoes, organic whole meal GM free bread, organic yoghurt, Fair Trade organic coffee and non-organic Hall's menthol throat thingees. Plus an organic, whingeing, liberal Guardian (and a fascist Jade supporting Daily Mail-not for me, the neighbour)
The check out for baskets only was free.I carefully placed my bag for life on top of the plastic bag dispenser so as the young check out hand maiden could see where I was coming from-I then turned my back momentarily to put the basket back onto the returned basket pile. In a flash the hand maiden and pushed my basket to one side and stuffed all the goods into a plastic bag. And gave me a sweet proud smile. The wife would have had the shopping out of the bag in a flash with a few well chosen words of indignation and instruction re global warming and land fill sites. I lack the courage of the true world saver. I thanked her meekly-put the offending bag into the politically correct one, paid the inflated price for the organics and went out to 'have a nice day'.
Out of eyeshot and fearing the wifely wrath to come I transferred the contents of Sir Morrisons earth destroying plastic bag into the wife's made-by-disadvantaged-people- in -a -poor -country Bag for life with a disdainful and earth saving flick of my wrist. I carefully left the plastic bag on the last check out but one for some other timid refusnik to show a bit more backbone. And returned car wards.
Before I proudly showed the wife the PC basket and its organic contents I went to pocket the non-organic menthol sweeties-I wanted to avoid a discussion on the morality of these and why I had not bought the organic version at the Green Shop apart from the fact that they are nothing like so effective-I discovered they were not there. I suspect they were unflicked and are still lurking in the returned plastic bag- a lucky find for some unprincipled shopper: Another Reason for Shopping at Morrisons.
Serve you right the Wife would say. If she knew.
And she will.
When she does
You have to start somewhere.
So I very carefully took my 'bag for life' in one hand and the metal basket in the other. I selected the organic tomatoes, organic whole meal GM free bread, organic yoghurt, Fair Trade organic coffee and non-organic Hall's menthol throat thingees. Plus an organic, whingeing, liberal Guardian (and a fascist Jade supporting Daily Mail-not for me, the neighbour)
The check out for baskets only was free.I carefully placed my bag for life on top of the plastic bag dispenser so as the young check out hand maiden could see where I was coming from-I then turned my back momentarily to put the basket back onto the returned basket pile. In a flash the hand maiden and pushed my basket to one side and stuffed all the goods into a plastic bag. And gave me a sweet proud smile. The wife would have had the shopping out of the bag in a flash with a few well chosen words of indignation and instruction re global warming and land fill sites. I lack the courage of the true world saver. I thanked her meekly-put the offending bag into the politically correct one, paid the inflated price for the organics and went out to 'have a nice day'.
Out of eyeshot and fearing the wifely wrath to come I transferred the contents of Sir Morrisons earth destroying plastic bag into the wife's made-by-disadvantaged-people- in -a -poor -country Bag for life with a disdainful and earth saving flick of my wrist. I carefully left the plastic bag on the last check out but one for some other timid refusnik to show a bit more backbone. And returned car wards.
Before I proudly showed the wife the PC basket and its organic contents I went to pocket the non-organic menthol sweeties-I wanted to avoid a discussion on the morality of these and why I had not bought the organic version at the Green Shop apart from the fact that they are nothing like so effective-I discovered they were not there. I suspect they were unflicked and are still lurking in the returned plastic bag- a lucky find for some unprincipled shopper: Another Reason for Shopping at Morrisons.
Serve you right the Wife would say. If she knew.
And she will.
When she does
Comments:
The Norn Iron bloggee has contributed the following:
"On a recent excursion to Mr Tesco's Corner Shoppe I placed my colourful bag for life on the conveyancing machine just in front of the goodies purchased within that goodly store. The attendant therein kindly placed all those thus presented within Mr Tesco's own wrappings before placing those in turn into the colourful bag for life. She then pronounced that I may claim "green bonus points" because I brought along the colourful bag for life."
Uplifting!
"On a recent excursion to Mr Tesco's Corner Shoppe I placed my colourful bag for life on the conveyancing machine just in front of the goodies purchased within that goodly store. The attendant therein kindly placed all those thus presented within Mr Tesco's own wrappings before placing those in turn into the colourful bag for life. She then pronounced that I may claim "green bonus points" because I brought along the colourful bag for life."
Uplifting!
Wow! What a guilt trip. There is nothing wrong with using plastic bags for shopping. They have many secondary uses - for which you would have to buy other bags if there were no shopping bags to use. When Ireland taxed shopping bags - sales of bin liners went up 400%!
If you use them responsibly they do not end up as litter.
Gerard
If you use them responsibly they do not end up as litter.
Gerard
Sadly Dear Gerard most people don't and throw them away where they join their friends in land fill sites or full of dog pooh tied to little bushes waving in the wind. And I think you will find that most of the Irish bin liners are biodegradable.
Sorry, Huttonian. You appear to be confused about landfill issues and the question of degradability. Plastic bags in landfill do not degrade - therefore they cannot contribute to emissions or leachate - unlike so-called degradable bags.
The question to be asked about plastic shopping bags is whether they are economically and environmentally efficient for their purposes.
A recent government funded study in Australia showed that banning plastic shoppiong bags would cost the economy over AU$1 billion, after taking into account any associated environmental benefits.
Unfortunately the plastic bag story fed to the public is based on misinformation.
Gerard
The question to be asked about plastic shopping bags is whether they are economically and environmentally efficient for their purposes.
A recent government funded study in Australia showed that banning plastic shoppiong bags would cost the economy over AU$1 billion, after taking into account any associated environmental benefits.
Unfortunately the plastic bag story fed to the public is based on misinformation.
Gerard
Me I think this is rubbish-no pun intended. The only people who will suffer from the banning of plastic shopping bags are the manufacturers of said bags-surely the Australians can work that out without government funding! If you use your own reusuable container for your shopping, which you are not going to throw away it is obviously'efficient' and with no effects on the environment
And so called biodegradable bags are so called because they do what it says on the tin with no damage to the environment at all
And so called biodegradable bags are so called because they do what it says on the tin with no damage to the environment at all
Whether or not you think it is rubbish does no change the facts. There are several inefficiencies associated with re-usable bags. They are a lot heavier - which means they use more resources to make and transport, and take up more storage space.
They slow down the check-out system, costing more in wages, impacting on prices for everyone - even for those that don't follow this new fad.
People store the re-useable bags in their car - so they don't forget them whwn they go shopping. This means cars are collectively carrying around an extra several thousand tonnes of shopping bags - burning more fuel and adding to pollution.
I'll continue to use plastic shopping bags - with the knowledge that the environment is not worse off.
Gerard
They slow down the check-out system, costing more in wages, impacting on prices for everyone - even for those that don't follow this new fad.
People store the re-useable bags in their car - so they don't forget them whwn they go shopping. This means cars are collectively carrying around an extra several thousand tonnes of shopping bags - burning more fuel and adding to pollution.
I'll continue to use plastic shopping bags - with the knowledge that the environment is not worse off.
Gerard
Oh well. For 'knowledge' read 'self delusion' throughout! Mind you from my visits to OZ I realise that yoa are probably in a large majority.
I am as interested in the saving the planetr for my kids and grandkids as anyone else. Unfortunately taking on token issues like reducing plastic bag use simply don't work, and often take the place of doing things that really make a difference. Promoting this type of activity simply adds to the misinformation the public is subjected to on environmental issues - adding to public confusion about what are the important issues that need to be addressed.
Doing some about plastic bags is of course not an alternative to getting a grip with the more effective strategies but anything, however little, is worth doing and anyone can do it.
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