Plastic bags under 50 microns are quite fragile.
Sure, plastic may be less of a problem for climate change (in this particular case of shopping bags), but is it for wildlife ? Is it easier to recycle ? Is it biodegradable ?
The answer is, I believe, no.
We agree on the fact we should re-use as much as we can ! But co2 emission is not the thing to look at in this case, it is when you speak of transport, agriculture and housing.
In the debate between ‘single-use’ plastic bags (snickering…yeah, sure…no re-use) and planned re-usable not-plastic bags, are we accounting for all the dog poop being picked up with the ‘single-use’ bags? Around here, I’ve noticed that a short length of PVC pipe zip-tied to a street sign and stuffed with plastic bags for unprepared dog-walkers are becoming the boundary markers of the better neighborhoods.
Maybe if I go make/install one, my property values will magically go up…
Oddly I find the need to buy small bin liners a measure of success (? Or measure of something)- it means the flow of small plastic bags into the house has dropped lower than their uses. However they build back up again once the liners are bought and the outflow of reused ones drop,
That’s the broken window fallacy. We don’t keep doing something pointless just because someone currently does it for a living.
I used to work as a lot attendant at home depot. I had to push carts back all day long. My job could be eliminated by people pushing their own carts back, saving everyone a little bit of money.
OK, time for my plastic bag re-use story.
Early 1999, I was traveling around Asia for a month, economies there were in the toilet so fares were ridiculously cheap, so I bopped down to visit Australia for a long weekend, with a last-minute visa.
I had been going to all sorts of “dangerous” places so I had hidden my stashes of cash in my luggage, wrapped in plastic bags picked up most likely at the Berkeley Farmer’s Market bag exchange.
As a shaggy single guy fresh from wandering around Vietnam, Thailand and Hong Kong, I got the expected level of scrutiny from customs upon arrival in Perth. Everything in my baggage inspected in detail, and some items scanned, by a mass spectrometer or something that picks up traces of elements on items.
The claimed to have found traces of LSD on one of my plastic bags. It was a Walmart bag, and I had never bought anything at Walmart, so I figure that somebody had used it to hold their stash before exchanging it at the market, perhaps inspired by the big smiley face on the side.
Fortunately, my story stayed consistent during the interview, it matched that of the guy picking me up, I had a copy of a magazine I edited, with my picture, and no actual drugs were on my person, so I made it onto the continent without more intrusive searches.
Alternative theory: I was using the bag to carry a wad of money, and everybody knows that there’s lots of drugs on money, right?
It is more of a joke. I don’t actually believe that using self-service checkouts saves jobs or that not using them saves jobs. If the supermarket decides sacking the till staff makes them more money, they’ll sack the till staff regardless of whether the self-service works any better.
Although in my more cynical moments, I might take issue with your assertion that we don’t keep doing pointless things just because someone does them for a living. I think there are probably lots of jobs that properly considered are completely pointless but we keep paying people to do them anyway.
I seem to recall someone wrote a book about that. yup:
There is another circumstance when baggers are used in the UK. It’s when some organisation provides this as a charity effort. Somebody bags your groceries and you throw some change in their bucket. I hate it. I’d much rather bag my own. I still throw them some change though. I haven’t seen anyone try this in a while - maybe they’ve picked up on how irritating people find it.
I don’t know if it does or doesn’t but i certainly prefer them over a regular check out. I’m typically buying less than 20 items and its easier and faster for me to check myself out.
Whilst still noting that I don’t think it actually saves jobs, I do genuinely find that my using a self-service checkout requires more staff intervention.
I apparently don’t shop as they expect. You can guarantee that most times, the thing will start beeping about an “unexpected item in the bagging area”.
Yes, it’s the item you just told me to put there…
If you’re going through three or four plastic bags a week, and you just buy a package of them, it is better than the couple thousand a day that the store would send out the door if not regulated.
That said, I will miss the plastic bags too.
Customers won’t show up if there are too many long lines. Plus in my neighborhood folks get into shouting matches and fist fights if they wait around too long. One of the disadvantages of running a 24 hour supermarket.
For whatever reason most people seem to tolerate the self checkout, even though it is a frustrating experience a significant portion of the time. So they go in, and we get one cashier babysitting 6 or 8 self checkout stations.
Me too, me too. These are awesome.
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