To think supermarket deliveries shouldn’t be in plastic bags (OCADO)

[DingDongBella]

So I normally order online deliveries from Tesco who just put a basket full of groceries on your doormat which you can unload onto your own bags. This means no single use plastic, no bag charge and you can look at everything to make sure it is good quality before you accept it.
Today I used a 25% off code with free delivery to try Ocado. The delivery guy just dumped my entire shop on the doormat in bags. Each chilled item had its own bag so a small shop used 15 plastic bags, most of which were ripped so can’t be reused.
AIBU to think in this day and age supermarket deliveries shouldn’t be bagged in single use plastic?

This.

Totally different business model to other supermarkets- it's not done by someone on a night shift in a physical supermarket, it's a huge, robotic system in a fulfillment centre. The bags are a necessary part of how they've designed it. If you're not comfortable with it, don't use it, that's your choice and power as a consumer.

Ah you got there first!

Usually they bring a couple of crates, leave them in the doorway and go and get another couple. I transfer to kitchen and unload. It is further from my front door to the van than my front door to kitchen - so I'm usually unloaded by the time the delivery person has brought the next 2.

Having said that, I generally don't shop online at the moment, and won't have had many since covid.

When my mum had a delivery recently I told her to get them to bring the crates into the kitchen.

Ocado run a closed loop recycling system for all their carrier bags and any additional bags or bag type plastics you want recycled. They give you 10p for each of their bags you return.

You can also give them plastics for recycling that cannot go in the blue bin- the ones that say “recycle with bags at shop” such as bread bags, birdseye frozen vegetable bags, Amazon/all online shopping posting plastic bags, bags that clothing comes in, many large crisp plastic bags, plastic wrapping or bags of most fruit and vegetables- potatoes, carrots, bananas, apples, shrink wrap on anything, and so on.

Most people who order groceries online do not recycle these other plastics at all because they do not physically go to a shop and then use the recycling station. Most shops have stopped having these stations as well since plastic carrier bag usage became fee based.

This is true, it’s why the food is fresher, it comes direct from a warehouse, it’s not already been from a warehouse to a supermarket and then put out on the floor to maybe days and days later being picked by a person to send to you.

I much prefer it. I hate having to unload crates while the driver waits. Bags are recyclable so I don’t see the problem.

I always unpack and honestly just tip it all out, I doubt I am much longer than one or two minutes if that as DH and I do it together.
Less than someone having to carry it in to a kitchen or whatever.
In fact, we've unpacked in the time it takes him to go back to the van and get more of my order.

No recycling doesn’t use as much energy as producing a plastic bag from scratch. Doesn’t matter what sort of plastic.

If it’s a bag for life bag then there is all the energy expended in oil exploration, drilling the oil, shipping the oil, refining the oil, then doing the chemical processing to make refined fossil fuel oil into plastic. Then you buy a bag for life only it isn’t for life, it wears out after a few years and then it is often tossed in the rubbish for the landfill as it’s not biodegradeable.

If is a new bio oil bag, like Ocados are, then all the corn and potatoes that are infested with insects or diseased or mouldy that cannot be fed to humans or animals are liquified into vegetable oil that is then processed into plastic. Recycling these biodegrable bags is a lot less energy than growing all new crops or using edible crops instead of topping up any shortage that is lost through recycling with a bit more vegetable oil. Their bags are made from bio waste and so are environmentally friendly. Better than paper bags.

People talking about recycling as though it makes excessive use of plastic okay. When we say "reduce, reuse, recycle", "recycle" is last for a reason.

When you return bags, they get baled up and presumably sold on to a company to process and, I assume, turn into the very same plastic bags that the whole sorry cycle started with. All of that uses energy, and if I had to guess I'd guess it's not kinetic energy from the wind that powers the whole process...

If people care about the environment so much that recycling is a concern of theirs, they'd be better off looking at reducing and reusing more than recycling.

Not Ocado’s bags. They run their own closed loop recycling system. So what if some energy is used? We use energy to post our silly opinions on here and that is far less useful than using energy to turn bio-waste into carrier bags that many customers require due to physical limitations or disabilities or hygiene preferences. I costs energy to make loo roll but no one is acting like we all need to install handheld hoses on our loos to wash our bums instead of wasting energy making single use loo roll.

What do you mean "not Ocado's bags"? You mean they don't get baled up and sent for processing?

I only use Ocado because they bag everything and bring it into your kitchen for you.

Asda deliver in crates, no carrier bags. They plonk the crate down in my hallway and I carry them through to the kitchen then return the empty crate to the delivery person, simples. I’m thoroughly impressed with Asda, I’ve had no issues with them and have been utilising this service for 2 years now.

I see the concern. That’s why I’ve started using a service called UltraEco-Grocery-Smug-Shop.

They come round (two hour slots) in a horse-drawn cart. They ring ahead so you can open the front door. Delivery is then by hurling the shopping at your door from the road.

It works OK for the household goods: bin liners, washing tabs and the like. But chickens suffer a bit and I get a lot of broken biscuits. I’ve stopped buying meringues from them.

But the environmental benefits are immense.

Given that probably 99% of shopping comes in a bag/cardboard box/plastic container of some kind, it's a bit bizarre to be having a hissy fit about plastic bags to carry it in. As if you're saving the planet by not having 10 recycleable plastic bags to carry all your plastic wrapped shopping in

😆🤣👌🏻🥇

@SkyFullofStars1975 surely any reduction is a good thing.

They do not get sold on to another company.
When you return bags, they get baled up and presumably sold on to a company to process

Ocado has their own closed loop recycling system owned and operated by Ocado. They do not bale up and sell the carrier bags on to another company.