to not be expected to bring my own bags?

[mrsout]

Snotty cow behind the till in Sainsburys today gave me a lecture because I hadn't bought my own bags! I use the carrier bags as bin bags, is that so wrong? I DO have a couple of "Bags for Life" but they have ended up as swimming bags. Just leave tham at the end of the till like before!

i do take my own bags to sainsbos but get annoyed when i do my once-a-month big online shop and they only put one or two items in each carrier bag and i end up with a mountain! i know you can give them back to the driver at the next delivery but it still seems a shocking waste.

Hadn't read janinlondon.

That's what I wanted to say - only she said it more cleverer.

Been using own bags for yonks, of course the downside it that I never have any plastic bags around for when you really need them (like sticking mucky walking boots into on Guide camp). As for bin bags I use about a bag a week as the only stuff that goes in one is the non recyclable or compostable.

Makes me laugh about reusing the Tesco carriers I get. They bloody fall apart the 1st time you use them FGS! I put mine in their recycling box instead.

I agree that we should all be taking our own bags to the supermarket. But by god it annoys me that M&S charges 5p for a bag allegedly because of the environment but then wraps its bananas up in plastic... How does that make any sense? Why oh why do bananas need additional packaging?

Agree with BetteNoire. I was lectured by the bag police in ASDA. I had walked there, bags were in the car, didn't want to walk back. She proper laid into me! Having recently returned from America where a)customer service is impeccable and b) You can fill a 4 x 4 with fuel for £15, I think we have bigger issues to address as a planet, and instead of worrying about carriers they could do more to find an alternative that does less damage...

YABVU if the issue here is carrier bags not the actual rudeness.

What did she actually say? Most people I see in supermarkets don't bring their own bags in Waitrose, never mind Asda etc. I have to restrain myself from lecturing them myself!

I feel brilliant about using strong, permanent bags (ie cotton, nylon etc, not hessian as I don't like it) as these are so much more practical and you can get tons in them. Also, it's much easier to carry a heavy load in a sturdy bag that goes over your shoulders - I couldn't go back to doubling up placcy bags and having them dig agonisingly into my hands etc.

I have a bag my sister bought me called 'Envirosax', it's made of thin nylon, weighs pretty much nothing, and rolls up like a very small sleeping bag with a popper to stop it taking up space. It's absolutely brilliant. I can get loads of heavy stuff in it and it lived permanently in my handbag so I don't have to 'remember' it any more then I need to remember my mobile phone or lipbalm.

I grew up with a mum who always took bags to the supermarket (and a gran who used a basket or trolley) - if you know you're going there then it's hardly rocket science to know you will need bags is it? You wouldn't go swimming and roll your eyes at the thought of having to remember your swimming costume.

I personally think that shops in the UK haven't gone far enough with the bag ban. Most shop still give them away without even asking if you need one. None of them want to 'go first' with a proper ban/ tax.

As for this idea that none of us should bother about the environment becuase it's somebody else's problem (China, USA, supermarket bosses) I despair. What an absolute cop out.

Let's just hand our kids a filthy, rubbish filled world because we don't feel any personal responsibility for it. Let them and their kids sort it out in the future eh.

All this sniping 'yes but what about the clothes bags' 'yes but what about the banana packet' 'yes but what about the petrol' etc is just excuses - we have to start somewhere. Climate change is happening - moaning about unfairness is neither here nor there.

I can't recommend these bags enough, they cost about £4:

www.envirosax.com/products/graphic_series/

When all these stores start to pratice what they preach, I will conform, all the time they waste packaging, but expect me to supply my own bags to carry their produce home, I will continue to use the carrier bags they keep under the counter

So you won't do anything for the environment until somebody else does, jumpingbeans.

Why do I have a feeling that if supermarkets actually did manage to significantly reduce packaging, there'd be another 'yes but' reason for not doing anything to make an effort?

Refusing to bring your own bags as a way of protesting about overpackaging, that just doesn't even begin to make sense.

I always seem to end up buying extra carrier bags at the check-out..they charge in every supermarket here.

I always end up buying more food than i had planned.

Lots of hold-ups at tills too when people have realised they have left theirs in the boot of the car and run off to get them.

But of course it is a brill idea and we all have to do our bit.

shop assistant should not have been rude to you though.

morriszap, i do see this a trickle down type way of thinking,and perhaps you are right,I won't do anything until someone else does, it's not just about carriers bags though is it, it's people being cold in there homes, being told to turn the heating down save on oil, council offices heated to greenhouse temps, hose pipe bans, save our rescorces, council flower beds being hosed dailey,use public transport,save on fuel,oh there is no public transport, I could go on,nad on but we can just agree to differ, and stay cyber- friends

I have a family of 7 and DH and I do a very large shop every week-two trolleys full. Of late, the cashiers in Sainsburys have taken to giving us about two carrier bags-than we have to ask for more-and they give us two more. I end up seething. We do re-use them in the home-none are wasted. To be quite frank I would rather pay for the bags than have this "rationing" when I have done such a large shop and spent such a lot of money.

We have to pay 22 cents here in Ireland everytime we need a plastic bag. Thats an extra E1.76 if we have 8 bags. You soon learn to bring your bags!!!!

A bonus of paying for plastic bags is the Irish countryside is now virtually bereft of bags in trees on windy days. The only plastic bags blowing round are off licence ones at teen drinking locations...

jumpingbeans, council worker's hypocrisy is nothing new. I work in a public building and the taps in the ladies loo 'turn themselves off' - after half a gallon of piping hot water has been blasted down the plug whether you want it or not. It's an outrage.

But my logic wouldn't be to go home and waste as much of my own water as possible to somehow get them back - it's the environment that suffers, not the people who expect double standards.

My point is that we all need to take our own responsibility instead of complaining about others, or indeed take our own responsibility whilst also complaining about (and campaigning against) others.

The plastic bag revolution is just a way for supermarkets to deflect responsibility. packaging makes up something like 3% of landfill waste but plastic bags make up only 0.1% (these are BRC figures but I am sure someone will tell me I am wrong).

So when supermarkets get their house in order they can start lecturing you at the tills!

However, I do try and remember my reusable bags just so I do not have a draw full of plastic bags that I cant bring myself to throw out. But I am not going to feel guilty if I forget them!

From 01 Jan 09 here in Canada, our local bottle shop is doing away with bags altogether. You must take your own. IMO a much better way of doing it, than years of faffing about giving shoppers a choice. I spent previous 2.5yrs in UK with the push for reusable bags, but they STILL have plastic available.

I reckon that when I am sure that I am doing everything I can to reduce plastic waste, only then do I have the right to complain about what supermarkets and other retailers fail to do in the same cause. Likewise wastage of water, etc.

I also work for a local authority. My employer is very proud of having the second best recycling rate in Scotland. I don't know whether the rubbish collected from council offices is included in that statistic but, if it is, it seems to me that they might have topped the list if they would do a little more to make it possible for office waste in its own buildings to be properly sorted and recycled.

It frustrates me when big organisations fall down in these kind of things but I don't take it as a licence for me not to do what is in my power.