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?

Rather than reduction in bags, I would force reduction of food packaging.
There is no need for apples, pears, cucumbers, and so on to be in plastic bags🤷 Same for many other items

Nothing more awkward than unloading all that shopping onto my hall floor while the delivery man just stands and stares at me bending 😅 I use ocado specifically because they provide bags

I dont want to have to heave crates into my kitchen then have to empty them while the driver is hanging around for me.
Ocado dont knock until they are bringing my stuff to the door. My Ocado driver puts the bags on my step , he would come in but i am happy to take them in myself. I can empty the bags in my own time and hand them back next week.

I find it much easier having Ocado bags. Crated deliveries work when you have space to unpack the crates and if you don't need any help packing or unpacking.

They 100% bale up the carrier bags. Are you saying they process the plastic themselves? Even if that is the case, the point about the energy use still stands, though I know you pretended (I hope you were pretending) to not get it.

Morrisons use bags and I prefer this. I either reuse them as bin liners or pass them back next time for refund and recycling.

Same
disabled and so much harder for me when they aren’t in bags

I specifically use Ocado for this reason. I do not want to be standing grabbing individual items.

That wasn’t what I was saying though when I said not Ocado’s bags and mentioned they have a closed loop recycling system as have many others on the thread. I was objecting to the sold on to another company portion of your sentence:
When you return bags, they get baled up and presumably sold on to a company to process

No, not Ocado’s bags, they do not get sold on. A close loop recycling system is one that is owned and operated by Ocado. There is no “if that is correct” it IS correct. Go and check their website and the many articles written about it before implying Ocado sells used carrier bags on to another company.

I was not saying they don’t put the bags into bales. I cannot be more clear.

The point about energy use is negligible and barely worth considering. Over half the grid is renewable energy, so even if Ocado just used the national grid and did not use a green tariff, most of the bags are being recycled with wind power.

and I reuse the bags as bin bags so a win for me

Apologies I was agreeing with you, it was Dingdongbella in the same quote i was disagreeing with.

I’d prefer not to have crates that have been on the ground, in a van, in a depot on my kitchen worktop. The Ocado bags are recycled, as has been explained and I prefer that to a crate every time. Even if the crates are sanitised, that’s not happening after each delivery and sanitising them will use energy anyway.

If we’re looking to reduce energy and costs, then factor in the amount of time the delivery driver from other companies spends standing on doorsteps waiting for crates to be unloaded.

The focus on the "closed loop" element of the bag recycling is well besides the point. Whether they do the recycling themselves or sell it to another company to recycle doesn't actually affect the rest of what I said.

If you don't understand why recycling has less of an impact than reducing and reusing, and the best you can do is basically say that everything uses energy, there is no explaining it to you.

There is a short video here – https://www.ocado.com/content/bag-recycling-process-148928 – that shows a little bit of the process of recycling bags to turn them into new bags. Is there really anybody who would say this process looks far more efficient than just using fewer bags in the first place?!

I used to work for Ocado, their deliveries are so tightly planned that you need to be at the door for as short a time as possible

I once had three minutes to do the delivery. That's from getting out of the van to getting back in afterwards

You don't have time for people to be faffing around unpacking

Okay, they DON'T sell the bales on to another company to process 🤣🤣🤣 Is that really the bit you're getting stuck on? You must work for Ocado.

Well thank goodness it only took 3 posts explaining the concept of not selling on the bags because they have a closed loop recycling system for you to understand.

I have no idea why you fixated on the carrier bags being presumably baled up for transport, they could all be tossed in compactor crates and transported that way for all we know. It’s irrelevant.

I do not work for Ocado. I am a customer of Ocado.

Yanbu. Ocado are great, and they recycle the bags. They carry the bags into my kitchen and put them on the table which is crucial to me as I have a serious back problem and bending to lift is dangerous for me.

I tried out the Tesco ‘bag free’ way, and ended up on my knees scrabbling around bending into plastic boxes trying to fish out my shopping while the delivery man (a strong healthy man 20 years younger than me) looked down at me contemptuously and didn’t help at all. Not an experience I ever want to repeat.

I’m fed up of all the hate shoppers get for using plastic bags that are crucial to those of us with back/mobility problems. And yet Tesco etc happily use single use plastic to sell vegetables like apples and potatoes in teeny bags.

Let us disabled/elderly shoppers keep our plastic shopping bags, but tell the supermarkets to sell fruit and vegetables loose, is my suggestion.

I completely agree with you! I've tweeted them about it before. A driver once said to me I didn't want to know what happened to them after so am guessing they're just binned.

I really like the fact that Ocado use bags. Fed up with having to empty tons of shopping quickly into my own bags when having a Waitrose delivery.

Anyone remember the pre Covid days when your shopping was taken into the kitchen for you 😬

Yes they seem to be the only ones that still do this. You can give them back and they will refund you (they are charging you for those bags). But not sure why they can't give you at least the option of no bags.

You are forgetting that this is just one subsystem within a larger system. Yes you may save energy used by a subsystem by eliminating it entirely, but this can be a false economy if it would then drive higher energy use by other parts of the system to a higher energy use overall at the system level.

No carrier bags mean deliveries take longer which means less efficient delivery system. No carrier bags means their automated warehousing system cannot be used, which is far more energy efficient than massive warehouses heated to human Health & Safety minimum temperature and humans running around and gathering food. Just these two alone indicate no carrier bags can actually result in more energy needed to run the whole online grocery system as a whole. (Which even with carrier bags will always take far less energy than having brick and mortar supermarkets that people drive to and shop in person. Ocado is by far the most environmentally friendly simply because it has no supermarkets, no shops.)

The reduce, repair, reuse, recycle chant taught to school children is exactly what it is meant to be, a simplified saying that can be used as a guideline in daily life. When you apply it to large systems that are made of multiple subsystems, the most efficient system overall often requires a bit extra energy in one or more subsystems to value engineer and optimise operations for eco-efficiency as well as cost-efficiency and energy-efficiency. This is especially critical with FMCGs that do not have a long shelf life.

Ocado will take any other plastic bags as well, although you only get credited for their own - 10p per bag.

I don’t want somebody in shoes coming through my house.
I prefer the bags with Ocado. Anyone who thinks that using plastic crates is more environmentally friendly should work out how many carrier bags would make a crate.