so some big “environmental conscious” grocery store has decided to tell you to shove it if you forgot to bring your own bag for groceries.
i think it’s about saving trees and being “ahead of the competition”.
well, how noble , i could almost cry at the sentiment. after implementing automation to cut down the staffing and laugh at the queque of customers waiting at the cashier’s line. i wonder if all this is to reduce our grocery bill too.
funny, they’re so concern about saving trees, but did not think much about cutting down the hours for their cashiers.
if you think it’s all fishy to you, hey, that’s why there are in the grocery business. and big one too. hah!
—bag your own or stuff it
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2009.
First it’s plastic bags so no trees are being saved. This is nothing more than a money grab that won’t do diddly for the environment. People see plastic bags and go into a twitter. They forget how useful they are for carrying things, store things, to put garbage into (yeah if they’re not around, you’re going to have to buy (gasp!) plastic garbage bags. Think of the way you’re using them now.
How will this play out? Well if Sobey’s doesn’t get on the bandwagon (and keeps and gives out free plastic bags), I foresee a boom in their business.
I like my environmentally friendly bag, whatever the reason behind its existence. I’d prefer to carry five of those suckers than 50 plastic pain-in-the-arse bags, thanks.
I wouldn’t go to Sobeys unless forced at gunpoint. After doing a price comparision a little while back, I realized that I spent an average of $20 more at Sobeys than I did at SS – for the same items – plus President’s Choice kicks the Compliments brand right out of the park. Sobeys can suck on my dislocated elbow.
“if you think it’s all fishy to you, hey, that’s why there are in the grocery business. and big one too. hah!”
I have no idea what the last paragraph of this bitch is trying to say… anyone?
Since plastic bags are recyclable, I don’t see why it’s necessary to ban them/not provide them. I also second what TTFN says, since switching to fabric bags, I much prefer them. They are way more durable and convenient. So long as you can remember to bring them to the store with you…
The thing that annoys me the most about this bag issue is no one seems to see that they’re basically being charged twice for them. Think about it, when a store sets its prices, it factors in daily operating costs, so the price of plastic bags is going to be part of the cost of what you’re buying. Then they have the nerve to charge you up front for these bags. And everyone’s going around accepting it like it’s a good idea to pay for them. Do they really think that stores were giving away bags all these years? Nothing’s free, people and that includes your grocery bags.
The least they can do is give the money they bring in for the bags to a charity. I could live with that.
Personally I think that they should be charging a quarter for each plastic bag you use. $1 for 20 bags, (probably your whole grocery order) isn’t really much, but if it cost you $1 for every 4 bags, and you could get a reusable cloth bag for the same price, I think more people would opt to do that.
People don’t think about the evironmental impact of making hundreds of plastic bags in comparison to making the same 5 cloth bags that you might use in a month. Just because we’re not cutting down trees for them doesn’t make them awesome. We have to use chemicals and machines and energy to make bags, and then remake them when they’re recycled.
It just seems like such a petty thing to say you need your plastic bags, or won’t conform to the man and buy cloth ones, ot that its a money grab when it’s so much easier and more convienent to use cloth ones.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea…. I have some a few canvass bags… but no one is going to be FORCING me to pay for bags. Thanks but no thanks I’ll make it more tiresome for them and just put each item in my cart individualy and make the cashier put a sticker on each and every one just to be a pain in the ass.
The idiocy of the enviro-crazies on this issue is something to marvel about. Plastic grocery bags are 100% recyclable here locally. HRM has a recycling stream for them. Meanwhile, the enviro-nuts gleefully pay $1.00 for a PLASTIC (not canvas, look closely) reusable bag that is made by some child slave laborer in China and shipped 8000 miles on a ship. And then they scream and yell at the rest of us who see through the illusion and shout scorn at those who continue to utilize the oh-so-friendly and useful plastic bag. Idiots.
Sobeys is now getting 100% of my business. SS is a vile organization for a whole lot of reasons, and this bag scam is only one more reason to avoid them.
Ah, how I pine for the paper bags of my youth.
I don’t know if I would call it idiocy Keith.
Recycling is the last of the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra. It’s better to not use the plastic bag in the first place than it is to recycle it. Also, there are actual canvas bags out there and they are superior to the crappy heavy plastic ones some stores are passing off as their “eco-friendly” option. Better to use those when you can, then rely on plastic all the time.
That said though, I agree that it’s annoying when “enviro-crazies” make too much fuss about the issue which is reasonably dealt with considering that Halifax does recycle plastic bags.
Since switching to canvas, I now just enough plastic bags to use for my garbage, rather than the huge stockpile I used to have of them before I switched.
I use bio degradeible hollowed out watermelons to carry my groceries in (which is mostly granola bars) it works great and they float.
For sure it’s fishy! Go to Costco and buy 1000 plastic bags then sell each one at a nickle a piece. Calculate the COGS on that and you got a nice livin’ happening! Notice the cost of your groceries are going up, you have reduced service AND reduced staff.. all adds up to profit, kids. As for the environment I share zzz’s sentiment and long for the days of paper bagging by bag boys who saw your groceries out to the car. Have you heard about what plastic is doing to our oceans?
Hey Keith: The plastic bags HRM recycles get sent to China anyway. Last I read, they were turned into plant pots.
@ Rafiki: And you can wear them as hats apparently.
Interesting. I suppose I’ll just bring my oversized sombrero, will that work?
You can! You’d think the store would be more concerned about identifying stolen merchandise as it walks out of the store not properly bagged.
Only if you are buying from the international section.
I understand what they’re doing, however, if they’re that concerned about people switching, I say provide the bags for free for a period of time (let’s say a month) and then begin to charge for them. That’s fair, and everyone gets those cloth bags. Even if they don’t, 5 cents is cheap in comparison to what could be charged. I’ve heard of places in the UK charging as high as 33 cents for plastic.
@ miles (from home): Edible hats
This has nothing to do with the grocery chain’s desire to help the planet and everyrhing to do with their desire to help save themselves a buck and increase thier profits. They are no longer paying for bags, plus they’re profiting from the reusable bags they’re selling. BroTim hit the nail on the head in his post, not instead fo getting bags for garbage, dog poop scooping, etc… we’ll just be going out and purchasing more plastic that won’t be recycled. Greenwashing is once again rearing it’s ugly head and people are once again are unquestioningly embracing it.
I don’t see the problem really, the canvass bags are waaay better, they actually keep the groceries inside in the back of the car.
not that stupid:
Take a look at your “Think about it, when a store sets its prices, it factors in daily operating costs, so the price of plastic bags is going to be part of the cost of what you’re buying.” and turn it around.
What is (or at least should) be happening here is that the stores are deciding not to pass on the cost of plastic bags to all customers, but rather the people who actually use them (although 0.05 $ per bag is definitely not the true cost of a bag). All those not in favour of subsidizing things they don’t use should be in favour of this.
Also, Miles…right on. I feel like spelling out what you said in case some people missed it, though: “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle” is in order of descending precedence.
REDUCE > REUSE > RECYCLE
People always jump on recycling as ‘good enough’, when it is always worse than the other options, and it sometimes even worse than making replacements from new materials.
Check out this video regarding plastic in the ocean. This is a BIG problem, we need to fix it ASAP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxNqzAHGXvs
Our Superstore bags aren’t going in the Pacific.
Oh well never mind then that’s just the west coasts problem.
I smell a new shoplifting scheme that can be had at every store…. curse me and my damn morals or I would take advantage.
It’s also a shame this green bandwagon is as large as it is….
the newest fads usually don’t affect EVERY aspect of daily life. Humanity (in all it’s ever replicating glory) is ultimately the issue…. but you can’t infringe on people’s rights to stop reproducing so you try to regulate every person’s ‘footprint’ in the environment. I mean, with the amount of people, it’s obvious there won’t be a consensus …
I didn’t mean to get philosophical there or anything… just hate how the politics enforce stupidity.
If they’re so bad… why not ban them globally?
NO MORE PLASTIC BAGS….ok, well it’s really plastic in general… so NO MORE PLASTIC. ok, well it’s machinery and chemistry that created them… NO MORE MACHINERY AND CHEMISTRY IS OFF THE SYLLABUS.
We need to protect the people from themselves….
utter lunacy.
No Dogma-
What you say would be right if they had lowered prices before beginning to charge for the bags, thereby eliminating the original cost that had been factored into the price of goods- but they haven’t. Prics continue to be the same. So, what is happening is the cost of the bags continues to be in everything every person buys whether they bring a bag, or not. To make it fair to those who bring their own, prices should decrease across the board to reflect that the store has stopped the hidden charge for bags and then they can charge for the plastic.
I stand by my original statement that we’re paying twice for bags if we buy the plastic.
Since my first post, I’ve read that a portion of the bag profits are going to the WWF. It’d be better if all the profits were going to charity, but I suppose some is better than none.
some have said it before…this move by the stuperstore is not an environmental measure, its a moderate revenue creator. if it was simply a green initiative they wanted, get rid of all the plastic bags, period.
if they were willing to take that step and risk the possible loss of customers over the cost of buying 99 cent reusable bags, then id say they care about the environment. for now i see it as profit generator, a nickel at a time.
not that stupid,
While I agree that the grocery stores (any any company) will do everything in their power to get customers’ money, competition between stores will favour the one which does use the extra revenue to lower grocery prices in general.
That’s economics, folks. While there might be a short-term boom in plastic-baggers shopping at Sobeys, anyone who shops with their own bags (or none at all) would be silly to stick with them.
not sure if this is really going to save the environment or save the “supermarket” bottom line.
we usually recycle those bags for garbage bags. now we will have to buy those great big mofos that will be less destructible than the little freebies we get .
oh well, there are enough mom and pops store around them, plus G###tT####r and Shoppers..
we will pick most of our stuff up from them collectively and shop at the “jolly green giant” as a last resort.
there’s irony to all this too. the green brigade, i mean.
i don’t see too many of those conservationists cheering this one as they are wise to the hype. i only see those car idling shopper who pride themselves of “helping the environment” while they park their car on the curbside leaving their automobile on idle spewing out more exhaust fumes than not shopping with plastic bags to f#ckup the ozone.
so go figure.
I was in a super market and some women was purchasing all organic items bitching at the cashier about how other stores no longer carry plastic bags and how they should switch to paper bags. What was ironic is that this super market no longer carrys bags and you have to purchase any bags you need this lady didnt even bring her own bags!
legsman, if you had a stack of money you wrapped in one of the “little freebies” and buried it in the earth, you would expect your grandchildren to be able to find the money intact… and they will.
Plastic is, indeed, bad bad bad. We could make a tough and long-lasting plastic out of hemp oil but it would come with it’s own expiry date… oh and it might put Dow Corning and related poly-carbon producers out of business… so we don’t. God save the economy.
If it were possible to produce a product that would be popular enough to put a big company out of business…wouldn’t that new company be GOOD for the economy? That’s the beauty of the free market…the consumer still determines who succeeds. I don’t buy into the theory that big business can really keep good ideas down. Sure, they have influence, but not as much as that.
The reason why we all aren’t buying HempOil plastic bags is that they are probably more expensive and when it comes to the choice of the consumer paying more for a plastic bag, the decision is usually “fuck the environment and gimme plastic”.
ALL businesses cater to our spending habits. They try and try to tell us what to buy, but ultimately it’s the consumer who makes them money.
We may have stumbled upon a piece of the “big picture” here. Companies like Dow are unafraid of small producers of anything; when the threatening product (in a free market) is an illegal commodity…
Right now in Canada the ONLY legal manufacture of bud-heavy marijane is produced for it’s pharmacological properties. It services a rather small population of registered users of medical marijuana. Imagine if we sanctioned it’s use for making goddam plastic!
See? This is why weed is illegal. It has nothing to do with your neighbor smoking pot or the corner store selling it to kids. It has everything to do with big business and world economics. It’s a WEED. It’s indigenous to every continent on the planet in one form or another. Do I smell some world order at work here? Do you?
We don’t need a product popular enough to put big business on their toes. We need legislation and education on it’s manufacture and many uses. Outlaw plastic and see what alternative YOU TOO could be growing and manufacturing in your own backyard. But to allow the raw materials to grow in anyone’s backyard? Soon you’ll need government less and less and less. We could be manufacturing so many useful and “green” products in our own back yards… each and every one of us.
Some days I just want to go out and hold an election. Fuck.
It had been legal to grow hemp in Canada since 1998. Canadian hemp is used in a number of textiles and cosmetics and plastic should a manufacturer so choose. More info is available on the Government of Canada website about how much hemp is produced in Canada and what it is used for.
Nothing stopping Canadians from leading the way in Hemp technology except the consumer not wanting to pay for it.
The difference between pot and hemp is all in the bud. The kind of “hemp” required to produce large quantities of hemp oil… let’s just say today your tax dollars goto work finding and busting those farms. But you’re right, Miles. Hemp is legal and good for textiles, ropes, paper, etc. So far it’s been up to the “free market” to produce green products. This approach is not working regardless of economic feasibility and likely because of giants like Dow and existing contracts and such.
We need legislation and I don’t mean “decriminalization” but real, free legalization like the kind we put on poison ivy. That is, none. Next we need legislation to outlaw polycarbon plastics. Canada is in a very good position to introduce this to the world and with the recession touting green job creation and all… *shaking my head*
kay, banning polycarbonates sounds great. can you suggest a replacement material for the wide variety of products this evil material produces?
uhm, isn’t that what I’m doing? Hemp oil. We used to use the stuff to stick your sole onto your shoe. We used it as gum to seal the hulls of ships. It’s a natural epoxy.
well if hemp oil can be synthesized to produce everything from Macbooks and Blu-rays to car parts and eyeglass lenses then id say you are on to something kay.
i think however, before we ban something whose benefit is still up for debate we should have a proven substitute for said product. now i dont know if hemp oil can make eyeglass lenses, but if it is a suitable material…we sure as hell will have to make alot more of it.
kay, I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from, production of hemp oil has nothing to do with the strain of cannabis. Hemp oil comes from pressing the seeds of the plant, not the buds, and there is no discernible difference between a hemp seed and a pot seed in that capacity.
There are several large fields that growing hemp in the Annapolis Valley since ’98. I definitely agree that hemp is valuable resource and it’s potential has yet to be fully realized.
“bud-heavy” I wonder what that could mean? I wonder where the seeds grow in the plant? hmmm? Ever see a bud of “hemp”? There’s not much to it. Change the breed and viola, a viable supply of raw material for many things.
Kay is on to something though, as John has pointed out, the horticultural details are a bit skewed.
Hemp fiber can be used for paper, board, clothing, car bodies, etc. It is stronger than wood fiber, annually renewable, requires one-fourth the space to grow versus trees, and requires few to no pesticides or herbicides. Hemp oil can be used for salves, tinctures, food, caulking, fuel, etc. Cannabis can be used to treat any number of medical issues and humans actually have a THC receptor in the brain showing a relationship to the plant that far pre-dates alcohol (alcohol has no such receptor).
In the 1930s, Dow Chemicals and Randolph Hearst were largely responsible for having hemp and cannabis outlawed. Dow had a great new product to sell (plastic), black gold (oil) was making Texas and a few individual families perversely rich, and “reefer madness” (that turned civil people into crazed lunatics) was a great way to instill race-based fear.
The info is widely available via the Internet, books, peer-reviewed articles, and documentaries. You don’t need to be a pot smoker or advocate to understand that there are many misconceptions, much misinformation, and many big businesses (pharma and oil offhand) that have a decided interest in keeping pot illegal and hemp on the periphery.
PS – One reason many pot growers are not on the hemp bandwagon is because if hemp pollinates within several kilometres of pot plants the crop is ruined.
I say Hemp-it-up. If you can give me an as good or better product for about the same price, I am on-board. I don’t think the Hemp industry is doing a good enough job with marketing or publicity though. Too bad.
Well, Miles, right now you’re payin’ a nickle a bag. If I could legally do it and sell it at that rate I aught to be able to pass a penny or two of savings onto the consumer but even if I don’t and generate a whopping profit (and matching tax bill), wouldn’t you feel better and wouldn’t the earth feel better if every single bag was made of bio-plastic? I would, despite the fact that each of those bags would have to have an expiry date printed on it. It’s a hands-down economic winner too. There’s no way polycarbons could be harvested from oil fields and processed cheaper than hemp oil and maybe we can’t use hemp oil to build some traditionally plastic products but if the products we could produce from this renewable resource were backed by government… I mean, even the processing is done with natural products you could grow/make in your own backyard… distilled “moonshine”. I hope I see it happen in my lifetime. I hope Canada leads the way.
Sorry, it was me0w that noted the processing error.
the only issue i see with dramatically increasing hemp crops to replace a wide variety of hydrocarbon based products is this…the availability of farm land.
lots of land available you say, not so. one might only look to the ethanol debacle. it was subsidized to the tune of billions of dollars by the u.s. government so that it can make up 5-10% of a gallon of gasoline.
any reduction is good of course. farmers were paid to convert their fields to corn for producing ethanol. which in turn means less corn to use in feed and that drives up the cost of feed for livestock. vegetarian you say, well by converting fields to grow corn for ethanol, you also reduce the amount of acreage for other crops.
hemp may be a great, rapidly renewable resource to exploit. however its proliferation must be done in a responsible, managed way which does create undue hardship on other areas of agriculture and food production.
Agreed John. One possible solution though is that we know hemp can be grown hydroponically and in greenhouses. If you can move the operation indoors at all, you can grow the crop on multiple levels, getting 2-3 times the yield out of the same footprint. It’s a fairly new idea called vertical farming.
I think such innovations/factory-type farming are necessary to continue producing food in sufficient quantities to meet the world’s demands.
Nothing wrong with applying technology to farming and scaling things up if they can be done in an ethical and sustainable manner.
The ethanol trend really pushes my buttons. Corn is one of the worst crops for leaving the land parched. Weed, however, is an ideal crop in the rotation leaving the field rich with nutrients from this deep rooting plant. You can plant almost anything after a 6 week growing season. You can’t say the same for corn. Also, hemp seed is preferred by chickens as they pick them out first… it has high nutritional value. Pot, as a food source for farm raised animals, also has a large market. Again though, the seeds you can pull from hemp doesn’t compare to bud-heavy marijane for purposes as these. The government continues to stifle the production of a resource that really could “save the planet” yet sanctions the push for ethanol… and john told us all about ethanol. Imagine if our government got involved in a good way.
oh, and did I mention oil produced from pot possesses lubrication properties far better than that of crude oil… a much higher flash point. There are about a million reasons the government should get on board and not one of them are so our pot-head buddies can smoke it.
thanks for seeing that i meant “does NOT create undue hardship” 🙂
Another interesting fact to note about hemp crops is that they are actually one of the top phytoremediative plants, capable of cleansing the earth of any number of contaminants. There was a study done near the Chernobyl site, planting cannabis on contaminated soil actually significantly reduced the levels of radiation and toxins.
me0w— the fact that cannabis was used at that site is just pure coincidence. That would happen with any plant. The plant doesn’t clean the earth as it sucks the nutrients and anything else in it. The same could be said for tomato plants. That’s why cannabis responds so well to hydroponic growing.
Actually, I beg to differ. Certain plants have the ability to break down organic pollutants and stabilize metal contaminants by acting as filters or traps, without damaging the plant itself. While there are other plants besides hemp that are excellent phytoremediators, cannabis has been proven highly effective for this purpose. A research scientist from Phytotech, the Ukrainian Institute behind the study states, “Hemp is proving to be one of the best phyto-remediative plants we have been able to find.”
Impressive me0w! Totally makes sense! Weed grows without any help at all in some of the most inhospitable climates. Imagine if we put it to work near waterways and chicken farms!