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In defence of the supermarket carrier bag February 22, 2009

Posted by David in Comment.
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On the way back from dropping my daughter at her friend’s house yesterday I decided to quickly pop into Tesco as I was going past it and there were a couple of things I needed.

By the time I got to the checkout those couple of things had manifested themselves into a full basket of stuff so I needed a couple of carrier bags.

Now before this rant goes any further, let me sing up in praise of the humble and much maligned supermarket carrier.

These days, you’re more likely to get disapproving stares by daring to request one of these than you would if you pulled out a gun at the checkout and said ‘Stick ‘em up’. A campaign to stamp out this evil incarnate has proven to be very successful.

But not for me.

I make a habit of grabbing more of the little blighters than I actually need to carry my shopping home – and for one very good reason. I use them as liners for my small kitchen bin.

Tell me something that could be more environmentally friendly than a biodegradable vessel for carting home shopping that is then reused as a bin liner thus saving the amount of plastic that would otherwise be used in, erm, a bin liner.

To my way of sane thinking, this means that I am using the same amount of plastic in a bag for two separate tasks, as opposed to the one task I would eke out of an off-the-shelf bin liner.

I just need to pause at this point for an extended bout of self-congratulatory back patting. Excuse me a mo…

So, where were we? Oh yes! Standing at the checkout in Tesco in need of a carrier bag or two for my basket of shopping. Or, as it turned out to be, in need of about 48 carrier bags for my basket of shopping.

You see, Tesco, in their (in)finite wisdom have taken another step forward in trying to discourage us from taking any of their bags. They’ve made them so incredibly tiny you’d likely need individual bags for each grape in a bunch.

Seriously. They are ridiculously small and therefore 100% utterly, totally and completely useless.

Of course, that’s the bleedin’ point. Their absolute pointlessness is supposed to help you to remember to bring you’re own hessian holdalls the next time you dare enter the premises. That means carrying them on your person all the time just in case you make a last minute decision to pop in for a spot of groceries.

Come on Tesco. This is ridiculous and a blatant attempt to save yourself money. If you were really so concerned about packaging and the amount of plastic you were adding to the world’s increasing stockpile, you might find it in yourself to stop using so much of the damn stuff on your produce. Don’t place two otherwise average avocados on a moulded tray and then wrap them in plastic just so that you can stick a fancy silver label on them, call them ‘Finest’ and charge three times the price of the lose variety.

But then, of course, you wouldn’t make as much money from people stupid enough to spend the extra money because it makes them feel special or ‘posh’.

I’m hoping that this latest microbag nonsense will be short-lived. In the two minutes it took me to pack, pay and leave I heard the women at the next and previous checkouts both complaining about them. When I mentioned them to the cashier she gave me a look that clearly said ‘Yes, they are small and you are the 700th person to point that out to me today’.