to think people who use supermarket plastic bags are unthinking and lazy

[pesme]

why can they just reuse old bags. i am bordering on the obsessive with this!

But you have to buy them and I feel I'm recycling my bags by filling them with shit !!!

you can get biodegradeable nappy bags

or buy your fruit at co-op they use degradeable plastic, on both fruit and veg bags and their carriers

Pobletsmum
I have stopped using Tesco because of their bag madness. is the trial just local to you?

I find that cashiers are almost desperate to give me bags. I take my own bags and don't put any of my fruit and veg in those little bags, just keep it all loose at the end of the trolley.

It comes to checkout and they start putting them in little bags. I say "I don't need a bag thanks, I'll put them in together". They give me a funny look and carry on. Come to the greetings cards I have bought, they start to put them in a bag. I repeat my mantra. She then seems to have learnt, and asks me if I wny my meat in a separate bag (an acceptable question). I say no. She then tries to put my fish in a bag! If I didn't want my meat in a bag, why the arse would I want the fish in one. This continues, even with small chocolate bars!

This just indicates to me that most supermarkets really don't give a toss about reducing plastic use and it's all for show.

want

I could only reuse 2 bags as they had holes/rips. I am spending a fortune on the different types of wheely and food composting bags but your council tax is higher than ever. Our bins are only collected once a fortnight and I am not the only one who has had to spend a fortune and a massive amount of time on clearing up maggots when we came back from holiday and it is NOT because we didn't double wrap or try to recycle and put out only clean rubbish. I'm fed up of people who are obsessive, I do everything in my power to make this world better for our childrens future and then again, at least I have time to respond and not worry about my children being killed by midless idiots who drink/drug drive at the moment. Having said that I've had a quick go on my PC and MN and am now switching off for the sake of the environment.

unthinking, lazy OR not organised enough to carry a stash with them.

I agree about shops foisting them on you - I always refuse a bag at our local off-licence and the Turkish men there, with whom DH chats about football, actually asked him why his wife was so strange about plastic bags!!!!

did you get your bagless shop ordered then???!!!!

The worst thing was the time I went to buy an item of clothing in Debenhams. When I paid for it, the cashier went to put it in a bag, so I said "I don't need a bag thanks." She then said "But you have to have a bag - it's company policy!"

I tried arguing with her, and said really I didn't need one, and it was better for the environment etc etc, but she insisted I had to have one. Presumably Debenhams insist on it so you can do some free advertising for them! Anyway I ended up not buying the item, I was so annoyed!

I had to take a box from clarkes when buying shoes for my DD

I didn't want the box, she was going to wear the shoes straight away

But I got told I had to take it!

In the shop i worked in people would buy one tiny cake and ask me for a carrier bag! It used to really annoy me. Or when i have bought one or two things in the shop and the assistant automaticaly puts it in a bag, i remove it and say i don't need one. I think the public are a bit obsessed with plastic bags.

your not unreasonable at all

come and live in France you have to pay for them in all supermarkets here, I was always forgetting to take my reusuable ones to the shop I dont anymore!!

Here we do get provided with 3 different coloured rubbish bags for our rubbish. Yellow for cardboard, tins, plastic etc, blue for paper and black for the rest and we get two rubbish collections a week. Glass you are expected to take to the glass recycling bins but they are all over the place, food waste is expected to go on a compost heap. It does become a habit to recycle

We have 2 bins, a big one for recycling and a smaller one for other rubbish. The rubbish is collected weekly and the recycling fortnightly.

Unthinking and lazy might be a bit strong, but it annoys me to. Its not hard to bring your own bags.

it's a bit unreasonable, but that said, it isnt hard to reuse carrier bags. we do and it saves us from ending up with loads of them.
and if you dont reuse them, at least, recycle them. most big stores (and some smaller ones) have carrier bag recycling bins. or buy one of those 'bags for life.'
10p are they? 20p? and keep them with you or in the car. (we do both.)

Mate and I discussed last night that what we NEED is something in the car that, as you get out in a supermarket car park, somehow reminds you to LOOK IN THE BOOT and get the bags out. I always remember half round round then have the 'do I abandon my trolley, take 2 kids up the the car park to get bags or be crap' debate with myself.
Agree it is, in my case, mostly unthinking-ness

maybe forgetful?
i forget my cloth shoppers sometimes...

Bagless delivery arrived, sorry for delay in reporting back! It was DH's b'day yesterday & my wonderful mum offered to toddler-sit at short notice, so we went out for a meal when I would otherwise have been mn'ing. Bagless delivery went well. Would request bagless again. I'll start a new thread about it in a few mintutes...

I have accumulated many plastic bags with the express purpose of reusing them so its not unthinking and given it is a huge palava getting to the supermarket with my 3 DC I could not reasonably be called lazy, but I am forgetful and i'm lucky to remember my shopping list, all 3 kids and most of what I went there to buy - one of these days I will reuse my bags, or design the first recycled tower block made from supermarket bags -but then one of these days i might get more than a few hours sleep a night or a few minutes to myself. I agree thatthe enviroment is important but somtimes lives do have to come a little bit higher up the order of things - its too easy to make assumptions about people.

I wish they would use cornstarch bags - 100% biodegradeable.

like these

And I would like cornstarch bin liners, food wrap, sandwich bags and dog poop bags too please.

It's a sod to avoid taking carrier bags if you use the self-service tills as the till keeps barking at you to put the item in the bag until you do.

I guess I could hang my cotton shopper on the handles instead but I'd hate to confuse the machine even more

Message withdrawn

Yes you are

I re use bags where I can, usually for bin liners but I appreciate that they are not biodegradable. However, if plastic bags were not given out, I would have to buy bin liners anyway so the only people who would gain are the bin liner manufacturers. It wouldn't create any less waste.

I always make a point of refusing a bag in a shop (much to the cashiers horror) when an item will fit in my handbag or another shopping bag I already have. This was following a suggestion about 15 years ago in the Body Shop when they said they only give bags out if essential. I also don't allow checkout operators to put items (like meat - unless dripping) in a smaller separate bag. They often seem obsessed with how many extra bags they can use.

I had to pay for a carrier bag in Milan the other day when I got some stuff from the Despa shop - it was only 5 cents but I guess if you did a large shop, then 5 cents a bag would make you think. Served me right for not putting the stuff in my cotton shopper (although it was pretty crammed already).