It’s a fucking nickle. Get over it. If you buy $300 of groceries, you might spend a dollar on bags. That’s basically nothing in comparison to what you’re already paying for the food.
I also don’t care if you “don’t agree with the policy” or what crazy scenario you’ve constructed in your head to justify your outrage at the bag situation. I’ve yet to hear an actual good argument from anyone about why this is a bad policy aside from “it’s going to cost you customers”. If it gets you whiny shits out of my hair, I’m fine with that. I had one guy tell me that plastic bags have zero environmental impact, but the cloth ones contain poison, another guy tell me that it was a scheme to sell more bags, and a woman tell me that if we really cared about the environment, we’d use paper bags and not charge for them(and decimate the tree population while we’re at it!).
Don’t ask me to tell management that you can’t spare a nickle for a bag, because they care even less than I do. But most of all, don’t fucking complain to me about it. I’ve already got a shit job as it is, I don’t need you expressing your outrage over five cents every time you’re in and expecting me to sympathize because frankly, even someone on a cashier’s salary can afford five cents for a bag.
—Cashier who’s sick of complaints
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.
20 bags for a buck? that’s a steal!
are they taxed?
either way, I’m certainly not complaining.
I remember this older [cranky] gentleman who bitched to me once when I was doing my time as a cash slave for this particular store because we were out of something that was on sale. i told him to get a raincheck and get some later on in the week when they came in and keep the raincheck…he decided to verbally berate me and go on about how SS just lost a sale!…I wanted to say “dude, they’re 3 dollar batteries….I don’t think gaelin weston’s personal wealth is going to dissipate because you didn’t give him 3 bucks”….shit.
While I’m empathize with the fact that customers bitch to you about something you have zero control over, I disagree with the policy. I didn’t pay anything for bags before, so why should I pay for them now? If the store was lowering it’s prices on all items, even if it was just a penny, I’d feel that they were justified in charging for bags. The price of the bags was worked into the price for items long ago, but I don’t see the price of the items dropping. The fact of the matter is that the environmental responsibility for plastic bags lies more on the store than the consumer. Yes, we are responsible for the proper disposal/recycling of the bags, but it is the store that chooses to use plastic instead of paper because they are more cost effective. Yes, people can bring their own bags, but that doesn’t relieve the store of it’s responsibility.
zZz: I agree, but I like them free, it’s an even better deal. Personally, just btwn you an’ me, I’m hording every bag I can get my mitts on….. ’cause the day will come – they will be illegal and I’ll be able to sell them for 15 cents a bag!!
Paying for bags is supposed to act as a disincentive to using plastic bags. If you don’t want to pay for them, then bring your own. Of course it’s not fair, but neither are $137 helmet fines and ridiculously high taxes on cigarettes. They are also disincentives.
Smee, true enough. it’ll be like dirt in waterworld.
300% turnaround… you may just be on to something.
also, now we’re able to get as many as we want since they charge. before, I doubt they would have let you get 20 bags at a time when you just buy a bag of chips.
I don’t have a big issue with the 5 cents a bag, except I have to wonder about the real motive behind it. While it does encourage people to bring their own reusable bags, I’m assuming the money all goes in the pockets of the stores themselves. They should continue charging for bags, but maybe the money should go to some recycle program or something like that (as if that would ever happen, but anyways)..I think we should just be grateful that it’s only 5 cents, because I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they take away all the plastic bags, and it’s 99 cents for the cloth ones. Imagine the outcry then.
Miles: Bring your own? You’d have to buy them wouldn’t you? Catch 22.
Remember the NSLC blue bags? Fucking handy suckers to have on hand, I thought the NSLC was brilliant to have made blue bags available, the ONLY smart move they can get credit for. Then I found out it was purely an accident, then they did window dressing and poof! Gone…
Idiots! Now I have to buy blue bags. Soon I’ll be buying handy sized plastic bags too, …we’re going backwards here.
to Justsayin – at the end of the year, the money made from the plastic bags goes to an eco-charity at the end of the year.
to Never Wrong – This is how the company has decided to deal with the ecological impact of plastic bags. They’ve had several other programs on the go to try to encourage people to not use plastic bags, but it seems they’ve got to actually inconvenience people to make them change their habits.
Also, paper might not be as cost-effective true, but it’s also weaker and imagine the amount of deforestation that’d result from switching from plastic to paper.
Nevermind: Quite right. I guess I don’t see buying a reusable cloth bag as being as bad as paying 5 cents for a plastic one each time. Also, I use cloth bags now when I go to the mall too…so I am getting more than my buck or two out of them.
The 5 cent fee is a great thing. 4 cents of each bag sold goes to the World Wildlife Fund. So if you neglect to bring your reusable bags, at least you can feel good about helping out a cuddly lil’ panda somewhere.
Anyone who bitches about a FIVE CENT fee in the year 2009 can get fucked.
Vaishino, thanks for clarifying the charge-per-bag outcome. Do you know if the whole 5c per bag goes to the charity? Or is it like other “charitable” ideas where only a small percentage makes it to the cause while the rest is corporate profit?
Re: the paper bags. I don’t find them weaker. Certainly harder to carry multiples if you are walking, but that is where the reusable are handy. If we could get hemp paper products that would handle the deforestation issue (annually renewable and one acre of hemp is the equivalent of four acres of trees).
PK: It’s Daddy’s money, not Galen’s. 😀
yes, thanks for clarifying- as I said, I was only assuming they got the money, but glad it (or most of it) is going to something worthwhile
Vaishino, while the WWF donation has been getting a lot of press, it isn’t accurate. This is from the Loblaw corporate website:
“The majority of the proceeds from the sale of plastic shopping bags will be used to cover the cost of the Loblaw plastic bag reduction program. Partial proceeds from Loblaw corporate stores will be donated to environmental charities/groups.”
I take “the majority of proceeds” to mean it will go to pay for advertising, signs, etc. Slippery bunch, those Westons.
The way I look at it is, if it has your shorts in a knot to pay maybe 50 cents for bags, don’t get any. Just wheel the cart out to your car, pile the shit into the trunk – the way a lot of people drive, when they open their trunks the food is all over anyhow – and when you get home just fetch out some garbage bags or boxes and carry the stuff inside. Done deal.
A couple of weeks ago some solid dude just ahead of us at a Braemar Market checkout was losing it because of this very same issue. It got old after a few minutes. I felt like telling the guy to forgo some of the junk food to be able to afford a few plastic bags, transfer some figurative weight from his ass to his wallet so to speak, but after some reflection I felt that to be counter-productive.
The Eco-Nazis strike once again.
Plastic bags are used for a myriad of things like garbage, instead of buying *gasp* plastic garbage bags, in your car for the same reason, to carry/store things, dog shit and I bet we can easily get 101+ useful things that people use these bags for.
How many of those uses put plastic bags into landfills where they’ll sit for 1000 years, slowly leeching into the ground water?
Also, if they’re so useful, then maybe they’re worth the nickle afterall.
how many of them result in the plastic bag ending up in a landfill?
That’s right I forgot Smartcars are biodegradable and CFLs and all that other green crap.
Ecologically sustainable living? Fuck that pussy shit, I wanna drive a Hummer converted to run on whale oil!
Vaishino, that Hummer come with seal fur seats.
almost thought viashino was a magic fan there…. but the pic isn’t a lizard guy. Not to mention it’d take plenty of viashino’s to take down a leviathan for that hummer of yours.
Vaishino that is awesome!
frankly i am cheap its not just the fact that the bags are 5 cents its the trouble of bringing the colth bags with you.
True, it is only 5 cents, but I am opposed to that on the principle that Loblaws uses. They are donating “some portion” to the WWF, no one here mentioned that it was a deal for ONLY 3 YEARS! After that, more gravy for them. Then there is the interview with one of the execs in charge of this program, they couldn’t answer where they got their numbers from or what proportioned of bags are recycled vs garbaged.
So they are doing this to be “green”, what about the foam trays in the meat department? Not very green. The million lights in the stores? The open freezers/fridges? General packaging of crap they sell (everything has plastic). They picked bags because they can charge for them again (they were incorporated in the food mark-up)…
oh snap!!!!
I’m thinking the incentive works but who’s it really working for? It may only be a nickle but it’s MY nickle and I’ll keep it, thank you very much…. oh, and don’t forget the penny of GST. If a nickle isn’t a big deal then why should the government also a get a penny? A penny is about the cost of the bag so even the government is making 100% (or more) mark-up money and on BOTH ends.
Nope, I think if the store really wanted to be environmentally responsible and induce change in the general population’s shopping habits they aught to be looking at the products they put on their shelves for consumers to buy. What packaging and other garbage are their products generating in the community in the first place? Where else are we going to get garbage? From them, of course!
I don’t think the store has even one other product that compares to the profitability of these bags (something like bank cards… we give you less, we charge you more). And that year-end eco-friendly donation they talk about is a 100% write-off against a monster monster profit. Oh yeah, the store is winning on the financial front hands down, no matter how you cut it. You know whatever green organization they donate to requires only 20% of the funds to go towards the cause, right?
Why shouldn’t they go back to paper? Unbleached FSC paper never hurt no one, certainly not in a landfill, anyway. This is a great opportunity to make a hemp product popular and you don’t even need bleach to make that sort of paper mostly white. Another hemp product, “hemp oil” could be used as a glue making the product 100% eco-friendly. Where’s a strong leader when you need one?
Maybe you should be that leader Kay. You sound like you have the cohones for politics and lobbying.
and how to make a slander campaign.
Even though I like the new bags, I’d actually back you if you took this up. Rather than us fight… unite.
I feel dirty.
I think most, if not all of you, are missing the most obvious solution here.
– There is a competitor who currently isn’t charging 5 cents a bag. Take your money there.
– If said competitor isn’t an option, you don’t have to use SS bags. I bring competitor bags in when I shop at SS, thus they aren’t profiting from me buying their reusable bags.
Corporations respond to loss of money, not people bitching out cashiers.
You got me thinking Miles. In fact this whole LTWWB (about Kay) experience has me thinking, love me or hate me, I could get your attention and actually keep it. Maybe lobbying is in my future. Thanks bitches. Oh, and zZz… you’ve never tasted soooo gooooood
PDG, great suggestion given a free market, consumer driven economy, however, that other place you’re talking about generally charges more for the same products. Kinda like starving a fever to feed a cold.
I’d like to know what happened to all the crappy white plastic bags they had the day they started charging and switched to the newer green bags?
Guys, no frills used to charge for bags when they were here ions ago. They still do in Ont…mind you they don’t ass rape you with their ridiculous price increases, but….no one seemed to have a problem then. Then again, their bags weren’t as shitty as SS’s current bags.
SD: I know it’s daddy’s money…I just like to pick on galen because he’s creepy (and kind of an asshat. I’ve heard “things” from former co workers)…I also used to get A LOT of comments from customers as per galen’s creepiness too, yo.
kay is LTWWB’s Internet superstar. the more we respond to her, the more she thinks she’s important and better than avatars and screen-names.
Kudos to the marketing department at Loblaws, this would be a great case study for any prospective entrepreneur. Maximize your profits by shifting the burden of cost to the consumers. Shroud the policy in eco-friendly slogans and promises creating a “friend of the earth” brand name. At the same time shift debate away from your corporate practices, to the merits of environmentalism and consumer consciousness, all the while standing on the sidelines marveling at your powers of deception. And once the initial annoyance becomes an ancient memory, scrap the environmental campaign and reap the fruits of your labour. As a shareholder, I hope that I to can expect an increase in dividends… .Pure genius!
Cheers, Loblaws
love me or hate me, I sure got your attention, Fat. My handle IS my name and you’ll notice I need no avatar to keep your attention. oh, and BTW, nice non-contribution to the OP. As usual, Fat, thanks for nothing.
right on, kay. i sincerely hope that my life is as meaningless as yours when i’m pushing 50.
PK… eons. Ions are very different. 🙂
and I LOVED No Frills…. look for those yellow tags… I’m pretty sure they started that.
and I’ve found the same about the competitor as kay… unless you only stick to ‘bogo’ week, you end up paying more every time.
I’ve also found that they ‘conveniently’ forget to apply some of the sale prices and now refuse to go because they dinged me way too many times on that one for not checking the receipt.
It’s spelled Nickel, not Nickle.
Owned.
greenwashing bitches
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right on, kay. i sincerely hope that my life is as meaningless as yours when i’m pushing 50.
Posted by Nice Goin’ Fat on May 14, 2009 at 1:45 PM
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Personal Attack #7. (Still Kay… why no other targets? Rather singleminded this fellow – again supporting the staff member theory)