No bags. They have no bags. I frequently want to buy groceries on my way home from work, but can’t without being forced to buy a non-recyclable black cloth bag. Ten dollars of groceries now has a dollar bag tax on top of it. I have so many of those cloth bags. I have to plan a trip to the grocery store a day in advance to make sure I have a manner in which to transport my goods home. Then you have to bag your own groceries, so you can’t watch them ring up your stuff, and you only realize they’re overcharging when you get home. It’s such an awful experience. The downtown store has the option for plastic bags at five cents a bag, why don’t they do that? Are plastic bags really that bad? You can recycle them.
I avoid the store at all costs, but sometimes, I feel they’re using my hunger as an excuse to force me to spend a dollar on a cloth bag. —Andrew
This article appears in Mar 4-10, 2010.
THEY WENT BAGLESS ON 21 FEBRUARY 2007. THAT IS NOW OVER 3 YEARS AGO. GET THE FUCK OVER IT.
THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO WHINE OVER IN LIFE THAN NOT BEING ABLE TO GORGE YOURSELF AS EFFICIENTLY AS BEFORE.
Baglessness and the winter parking ban are two things I am painfully tired of hearing people sob about.
Fuck enviromentalists.
or just keep your cloth bags in the truck of your car for such opportunities that you need to make an unplanned stop at the grocery store.
Planning things in advance? Who does that anymore? /sarcasm.
I HATE THAT BAGLESS STORE!!! I refuse to buy any more of those black bags, so if I make an inadvertant trip to the store and have no bags, I use their fruit bags and meat bags, triple them up, and voila, I have my bags. I also have to plan how much I’m going to buy. If I bring two bags, and see a great deal, and buy more than I thought, and then my two bags won’t hold three bags worth of groceries, I… well I get really pissed off on the inside. I am fully in support of using reusable bags, however, it should be up to my conscience to police it, not a grocery store chain.
Additionally, plastic bags are easily recyclable. Those ‘reusable’ bags last maybe 10 or so uses, and then what? Where do I recycle the “reusable” bag? Can I even recycle these bags? Has there even been a study to examine whether it is more environmentally friendly to use reusable bags, or to recycle plastic bags? I would be interested to know the statistics on the consumption of energy to create the reusable bags and transport the reusable bags. How many times do people reuse them before they get torn and discarded? Can they be recycled? Maybe everyone has the wrong idea about these environmentally friendly bags!
ss has bags,free, and sobeys too i think.at least the one on joe howe has freebies.maybe you shop at the wrong stores?
“Those ‘reusable’ bags last maybe 10 or so uses, and then what? “
What are you using the bags for? I have bags that are over three years old and I use them for groceries, packing for trips, and for moving!
As for the OP – why not bring a bag to work in your car or work bag? Or leave a few at work that you can use as needed?
The overcharging stuff – just wait a moment after you’ve bagged up and check your receipt before you leave the store.
Put your resusable bags in your backpack / purse / fanny pack / briefcase.
Problem solved.
Like many others, I no longer patronize that store. I hope they can make enough from the dirndl-skirts to keep it open.
the whole plastic bag contrversy is a big ass scam; studies have shown that plastic shopping bags are like less than 1% of landfills garbage; it’s just another ploy by “friends of yhe earth types” to get their agenda into eveyday life (their doing a good job)
That Stupid Store on Quinpool is kind of small and shitty anyway. They should really just tear that entire complex down, apartment building and all, and put something new and hopefully more attractive there. You know, vibrant and sustainable and all that. Yep, straight from the mouth of an unemployed urban planner!
your right though Q for such a happn’n area Quinpool is effn ugly and could use a serious re-development project; sure seems like there’s money in the adjacent hoods
Realistically and more economically, a “Redesign” could work, and I believe there already is one in place for Quinpool anyway. Maybe it’ll happen, maybe not… let’s see in a few years. Quinpool has certainly come a long way compared to how it was just five or ten years ago.
Ever consider checking your receipt before you leave the store?
I hate that bagless store too! I recycle my grocery bags as garbage bags, at least its re-using them…and saves me wasting money on bags to throw out!
I’m with you on this one martym.
I use them too for garbage or for what the cat left in it’s box. I could build a catapult and launch them back into nature. Nobody minds that a bear shits in the wood do they? All I know is when they’re fully outlawed, I’ll have to go buy them.
All this technology and we can’t invent a container to hold a bunch of other things that biodegrades quickly.
There was a commercial on tonight about a product that dissolves in 10 weeks or something, Anyone else see it? Make a bag out of that.
We’ve learned about Planck’s law and the Casimir effect but we just can’t solve the holy grail of science, a biodegradable bag.
It’s a placebo to keep you “happy” with one hand, while industry stuffs the rabbit ito the corporate hat with the other…business as usual.
It’s a placebo to keep you “happy” with one hand, while industry stuffs the rabbit into the corporate hat with the other…business as usual.
Gee, maybe if we ‘ban’ those evil plastic bags, folks will forget that their “fresh” asparagus was shipped 5000 miles after being grown in a cesspool of patented chemicals
Pretty easy solution, if one drives. Just keep them handy in the trunk. What you forgot? Too bad, then you need to cough it up. Besides, 10 bucks should see you carrying that stuff out. Use your creative juices, if you have them.
Right, OP you might be a guy. Time for you to get a man-bag. They are sexy.
Frosty, you’re exactly right, it’s a simple cash grab designed to look like an environmentally conscious promotion. I’m assuming this bitch is about the SS on Quinpool? I’m out of touch with Halifax for the last 5 years, so I wouldn’t know.
I don’t know about this bagless store…but it sounds like its a pain to go there without planning to !
But I have those dark reusable bags & I use them as often as I can…I know that I have some from the very first time they were offered. They were much bigger then what’s usually available now & although they’re no longer stiff, they are still servicable .
What else are you using them for ,if you get only 10 uses from them ?
Sobey’s bags are 10x better than SS ones….I hate the SS and avoid it as much as possible….except for the one on Joe Howe.
I completely agree with the OP…there should still be the option of plastic bags everywhere, most people are reusing the plastic for one thing or another…I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone throw a plastic bag in the garbadge unless they’ve arleady used it for something else.
I stopped shopping at the Quinpool Superstore about 2-3 weeks ago (they probably didn’t notice) after the hundredth time of dealing with a lethargic cashier who would slowly ring shit in, slide the items down, then stop and put the items in the bag. Its like doubling the length of time it takes since they went bagless (in the bag days, the items would be placed in the bag by either the cashier or the person buying the stuff) and it isn’t just this cashier, its most of them. I meant to e-mail the manager about this and my reasons for never going there ever again but haven’t gotten around to it. Since then I have extended my boycott to all Superstores, as they are all pretty low-rent when compared to Sobeys. Go figure, I’m actually praising Sobeys, but man, Superstore is just so ghetto. Obviously, since the Quinnpool one is most just servicing the student population they don’t want to dump too much money into it, but still.
Oh yeah, what I meant towards the top was cashiers would bag shit AS they rang stuff in, now they basically do the same thing twice per customer. Ring it in. Exchange money. Bag it. Move to next customer. Fuck you SS.
I just carry a costco one in the trunk… it usually holds a weeks groceries for two in one shot.
and seriously jennier… fanny pack?
do they even make those atrocities anymore?
(btw, mine used to be neon yellow…. that’s how I rolled back in the 80’s)
zZz: joking, of course, about the fanny pack.
This whole “going bagless for the environment” schtick is a massive pile of horseshit!! Plain and simply put, if the SS were so concerned about the environment, they would start by reducing the massive amounts of excessive packaging they use in their PC and NN brands. But no, instead they once again gouge the consumer by charging for plastic bags, which were free at one time.
WAR SOBEYS!!!!! >=)
wow… in this case, zZz..zZz == zZz
I would hate to never have them onhand…
I don’t really do much to them. I just carry home groceries, and wash them and dry them. The seams tend to split. Make sure your wash your bags, btw. There is some sick stuff that was found in reusable shopping bags.
Cranky, I also hate how long it takes these lackadaisical frigging clerks to pack peoples groceries!!!! With the bagless store, all packing comes after the customer has paid, so it takes forever! It’s so annoying.
If we can’t get used to this one tiny change, there is no hope for our society to undergo the massive shift in thinking required to make our communities sustainable. Just roll up a bag in put it in your jacket pocket, or your schoolbag or your purse.
bluegreen, just because some prefer to recycle plastic grocery bags instead of using reusable bags doesn’t mean our whole society is doomed. Get real. Some evidence supports the fact that recycling plastic is actually better than the environmental cost of transporting reusable bags, so lets get off our high-horse, shall we?
sarey you beat me to it; most of these “green” iniatives are so chock full of bullshit and half baked research that they border on criminal; what are you a member of that commie group the Sierra Club; get a grip and bypass ANY bi-partisan groups for your info!
Sarey, exactly. You can actually feel the collective ‘for fucks sakes’ in the lineup while watching the cashier….she’s just rung through the last item……ok, now she’s taking the cash…giving back the change…..OH FUCK! NOW SHE’S TURNING AWAY FROM US AND SLOWLY PUTTING THE SHIT IN BAGS!!!!!!! FOR FUCKS SAKES! The last straw was when it was two students. One chick paid while the other stood at the end of the cash and watched the items get piled up.
I was the guy who left his shit on the conveye belt and walked away, never to return…
Fuck! “sustainable” another fucking overused word that means shit. Just like having a “dialogue” with someone instead of a conversation.
But Bro Tim, having a “dialogue” with someone about all things “sustainable” is “the right thing to do”. Isn’t it?
let’s talk sustainable products and green jobs manufacturing these plastic bags out of “hemp” grown on a farm local to the grocer right here in Canada… ANYWHERE in Canada since weed can grow almost everywhere on the planet. No shit, we can make “plastic” out of weed but the government says no no no. Weed produces a better “ethanol” and leaves the soil rich and ready but NO, let’s talk earth raping corn instead. And green jobs don’t stimulate an economy, do they? Yet another “symptom” of your government “working” for you.
I see where you’re coming from…. but I DO like corn…..
hmmmm, that’s a toughie
that store is the worst. every time i go in there i leave pissed off. 99% of the time there’s only one or two cashiers working and the lineups are 10 people long. its pretty easy to see how useless this whole procedure is by paying attention to how much plastic every single item you can buy there comes with.
there most be a lack of cash flow or something at the weston group cause i just visited a real canadian superstore that i last was in 14 years ago; i’m not exaggerating but there’s the same paint job and interior from ago; also in my on. home town there’s a no frills store that is a disgrace and should be torn down.
i use the big bins…they don’t roll around in the trunk, then i just line em up and pack/chuck my own grocs in. the ss on quinpool really blows…very dour workers
Paingirl…that all sounds very painless !
You may have to think up a new moniker ;p
Yeah, it seems like theres only ever 2 or 3 cashes open no matter what time of day… I wonder if the “student discount” thing fails they’ll just shut the whole fucker down.
no way mr.more, i bake bread and pain is a relative thing…it took me a year to come up with that pic and i’ve had that petty crimefighter moniker for some time