Waitrose free coffee cups - virtue signalling?

[runningpram]

Ok so probably the most middle class post ever but I was in Waitrose with DD and saw that you now need to bring your own cup for the free instore coffee - there are no disposable cups on offer any more.
Fair enough - however the rest of the store is a bit of a sea of plastic. For instance if you want to buy a croissant and put it in your basket the only option was plastic bags - which presumably would get chucked away after a few seconds but would litter the oceans for hundreds of years. Is the coffee thing therefore just virtue signalling or AIBU?

I made some wee drawstring bags out of an old net curtain. I stash them in my shopping bag and use them for loose fruit/veg and bakery items.

Yes, I wash them!!

Every little helps I agree with this too.

You can weigh out fruit and veg in Waitrose and put them in your own containers and stick on the printed price labels too.

Our Waitrose has a waitrose unpackaged section. You can take your own containers, buy and grind coffee beans, refillable Ecover liquids, rice, pasta, seeds, cereal, dried fruits, frozen fruits etc, you can take your own packaging to the butcher/fishmonger sections and get a 10% discount. Even Beer and wine in refills...

Why pick on Waitrose?

LIDL uses paper bags for bakery - and so does Waitrose come to that. Why don't they just routinely have paper bags for fruit and veg also? That's how it used to be from greengrocers.

The fruit and veg bags are now conpostable. The rest, they are working on. They did trial a package free supermarket recently which was a hit with customers but they admitted that, at present, costs would be astronomical but they are still working on the packaging thing. Their own brand ready meals' packaging are now biodegradable or recyclable.

The coffee thing, yes, I can see why you think that but it is something more within their control and doesn't incur any costs- if anything, it saves money - not to mention the mess when customers inevitably droped them on the floor.

Frree anytjing actually makes people a bit grabby. In our local, people got stroppy if they ran out of cups or didn't automatically offer one and a few local down and outs would often help themselves

Ah yes, the old 'well other things are worse so we shouldn't bother changing anything' fallacy.

It starts with this.. then they change other things and eventually, hopefully, we will progress

Pop into Sainsbury and buy reusable drawstring bags for 30p.

A Tesco delivery driver said to me today they stopped the bags because they couldn't be bothered with recycling them anymore...

Also the ms molly range in Tesco. We buy the little chic chip cakes which where indivualy wrapped in plastic then in a cardboard box. They are still individually wrapped but they replaced the cardboard box for plastic wrap which can't be recycled.
Couldn't understand that one...

My favourite quote for this sort of thing.
Just because you can't do everything does not give you the right to do nothing.

All the little bits add up.
Also, it all adds to behavioural change (worked in environmental education for years). So, you want people to change behaviours. If you start with "You need to sell your cars and never fly again and ... and..." and pretty much only mention the big stuff, you put people right off. Say "You need to take your own bag when you go shopping" and people grumble a bit and then they get used to it. And they start getting used to the idea that change isn't the big deal they thought. So throw in the next thing. Take containers for rice and sugar, and your own coffee cup. If Waitrose had started with this it might have seemed like way too much, but start with bring your own bags, and gradually wind up, and no, they aren't doing everything but each little bit paves the way for the next little bit. It's not really virtue signalling, it's getting ready for the next bit!

From tiny acorns do giant oak trees grow. 🌳

Yabu.

It's not as though the two things balance out - The fact that Waitrose sell other products that are over packaged doesn't magically make disposable coffee cups environmentally friendly.

Waitrose could certainly do more to reduce waste, but insisting on reusable coffee cups reduces total waste, and that is better than nothing.

I totally think it's what @Notthemessiah says

I can't get over how Greggs is taking over the high street , it is all fattening food , expensive & encouraging the explosion in obesity surely.
It puts the little plastic bag from WR to wrap your croissant into perspective imho.

There's so much moaning about this on MN.

It seems that some posters just hate the idea of making even the slightest of efforts for the sake of the environment, keep moaning about everything and keep attacking anyone who says they are trying to reduce their consumption.

Immediately the old "Do you walk everywhere, wear second hand sack and ashes and only shower once a year in the light of a candle made of earwax? Because otherwise you cannot say anything" line is trotted out.

So tedious. So silly. So last century.

Seems odd to pick on them now, just as they are rolling out a lot of properly recyclable stuff, less packaging and more recyling boxes (Brita water filters for instance, bloody impossible to get rid of those bloody things).

If they can implement one thing at a time eventually it will all add up

Yeah, it's a cost saving thing under the guise of environmental concern. Waitrose made a big (admitted) mistake with the free coffee - though not as bad as the 'buy a hoover get a free flight to the US' fiasco!! - and this is one of the ways of further reducing take up

Does it matter of they gain by doing it? As long as single use plastics are reduced...

Another slagging off Waitrose thread. Marvellous. They are good to their staff, try to source food ethically, and are trying to reduce plastic waste.

But you have a go at them rather than Asda (Walmart - read about how they treat their staff), or Tesco (horse meat). Waitrose have reduced packaging waste by 50% since 2009 and are working towards reducing it further, which you could easily read if you had taken the slightest bit of trouble.

I'm carrying on shopping there. You stick to your supermarket but leave mine alone.

YABU it's horrible that your mind thinks like this OP. It's not virtue signalling, it's an easy win for the environment. 52 MILLION cups have been saved from landfill so far.

Companies up and down the country are eschewing disposable cups.

Waitrose have also stopped all use of black plastic.

I work in a supermarket..today I had a customer who had 10 bananas all individually double bagged with produce bags. I silently judged very hard!!

Also people who bag the odd loose potato..I don't think they realise how many hands have already touched it so an extra pair won't do too much harm.

The 'plastic' bags in Waitrose are compostable. Yes, they could do more, but they are moving in the right direction. I hate the phrase 'virtue signalling' and find it says lot more about the person using it than the people its directed at.

I hate the phrase 'virtue signalling' and find it says lot more about the person using it than the people its directed at

I think it's an excellent, very descriptive, expression for certain types of behaviour and enjoy using it! I don't virtue signalmyself because I don't have any virtue to signal (though I do have a hybrid car now, but then, I am fortunate enough to be able to afford one).

But I also agree that every little helps. Every plastic bottle that isn't used, mounts up. Same with plastic cups. And yes from acorns grow oaks and all that. There is SUCH a lot of plastic rubbish in supermarkets though so just getting rid of plastic cups is a very small acorn.

I think M&S is the worst though. For example croissants. In Waitrose there is a plastic bag but a cardboard tray. In M&S the whole thing is plastic. And then they have their 5 grapes in a plastic cup for lunchtimes :( As for their stupid promotion with the plastic toys...why would you do that?

Actually I will virtue signal - but as an illustration. I like cheese and eat rather a lot of it. I used to buy plastic bags to put it in once it is open so it doesn't go funny in the fridge. It has now occurred to me that I can reuse the bags that cereal comes in, or indeed the plastic bags that loaves of bread come in, instead. Not perfect but I am not longer buying extra bags. And in the end that's what matters - awareness, small changes of behaviour leading to bigger changes.

Cost-cutting under the guise of being environmentally friendly - means less free cups of coffee (as people will forget to bring their own cups) and no money spent on cups themselves

Probably yes, but the end result is a net reduction of waste, so it's a bit of a strange thing to moan about.

OP, perhaps you should write to Waitrose about the plastic bags used by their bakery. Maybe they could change to a more environmentally-friendly option.

Cutting down on certain kinds of packaging (like for meat, fish etc) is much more complicated than simply not offering free coffee in free coffee cups. So no, I disagree.