Monday when the EcoMaids came to clean our house, I took the kids on a walk to get out of their way. We walked to our nearby Walmart Neighborhood Market despite the fact that I have a Walmart phobia. It is the closest grocery store to us, so sometimes I go there. I am careful to buy only foods we would normally buy, as far as being environmentally responsible and organic when possible. They are one of the only places I can consistently find organic garlic and they have recently started carrying organic milk. Good for them!
In my rush to get out the door with both kids, I left our reusable shopping bags at home. I told the checkout person that I’d be fine just putting the items into the stroller basket, but she didn’t want to do that. I have noticed that when I walk to stores with the stroller they sometimes have policies against putting your groceries in the stroller basket, I guess because it looks like you’re stealing. So, she put our items in plastic.
When I got home I was horrified to find she had used 6 PLASTIC BAGS for only 13 items!! And these were small items – two were jello packets. I could have fit all of them into one reusable bag.
Here is a picture of the groceries I bought (NOTE: cans are for donation, but I only bought non-organic items that are on the EWG Clean 15 list):
And here is the stack of plastic bags. My toddler is standing behind them to show the scale:
ACK! I was really traumatized by this experience. Why do the checkers use so many bags for so few items? Why couldn’t I have put them in my stroller basket?
The plastic bags are hanging on my doorknob, waiting for me to find somewhere I can recycle them.
Ridiculous!
That is AWFUL! Whenever I forget my resuable totes, I feel like such a dweeb. I know that Sprouts has a plastic bags recycle bin usually. Sometimes I am just dumbfounded how they bag things. I have even had where the checker bagged a container of cream cheese ALONE! Please tell me, why?? lol – and thank you for stopping by my blog this weekend and linking up!
Sometimes Wal-Mart isn’t that happy when you bring your reusable bags because they don’t fit on their turnstile very easily. Oh, well I’m going to bring my bags anyways. But, one time the customer behind me said I was so awesome for bringing bags. (I’ve been having some positive experiences as Wal-Mart lately) I think it’s insane how many bags they want to use. Seems like stores would train their clerks to use as few as possible to save the store money. My husband and I sometimes punish ourselves if we forget our bags, and carry everything in our hands. We have gotten some looks by some cashiers.
I tell you what, a five-cent bag tax has done wonders for Washington DC. The revenue generated goes to clean up the Anacostia River and folks have dramatically scaled back their use of plastic bags.
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE if they did that here! Perhaps that would cause the checkout people to stop treating my reusable bags like plastic – YOU CAN PUT MORE THAN ONE ITEM IN MY GIANT BURLAP BAG, PEOPLE! IT CAN HOLD 2 GALLONS OF MILK!
Wow, that is insane.
Yes, it drives me nuts if I bring my bags load it down. It can hold.