A Bag is for Life, not just for Christmas
I popped into <a href="http://www.waitrose.com/">Waitrose</a> after work for a couple of odd bits of shopping during the week. I didn't need much and I was, as usual, carrying my sexy man-bag so I dived into the green till queue (which actually didn't have a queue at all) that they're trialling at the moment.
The point of this queue is that they don't give out any carrier bags. Like I say, I was carrying my man-bag so I knew I wouldn't need a carrier, but as Waitrose are selling their bag-for-life (a large, sturdy, fully recyclable bag that they replace for free when it wears out) for just 10p I took one anyway. The cashier was really having some fun with the idea - she sold it to me on the basis of it being the latest stylish accessory!
Forgive the excursion away from cheap food and recipes, but we can't get away from the fact that affordable eating, healthy eating, and an environmental conscience are inextricably linked. Waitrose claim that a normal carrier bag has an average life expectancy of 20 minutes and this seems reasonable; you put your purchases into it, drive home, pack your food away and put the bag in the bin. Who lives more than 20 minutes away from the supermarket these days? I do save some carriers to use as bin-liners but in general I take far more than I can ever use and I do feel a pang of environmental guilt every time I put one in the bin.
Then there's the money aspect: carrier bags may well be cheap to produce, but they are not free. Some of the money we spend in supermarkets goes towards making the bags; money I'd rather save.
My thinking until this week was very much, "Bad supermarkets, making all those bags," but the Waitrose initiative has given me some food for thought. It's not the supermarkets at fault at all, it's US. We've all got into this awful bad habit of just taking bags wherever they're offered. We should be better organised; we should take old carriers with us to use again.
Since I got my Waitrose bag-for-life I've taken it everywhere with me and I simply haven't taken another carrier bag. It doesn't weigh anything or take up any space but it's effectively trebled the size of my man-bag.
And it's not just the supermarkets, it's all the shops! I did my usual round of the local shops today - fruit & veg stall, Polish shop, Superdrug, greengrocer and the local butcher. With the exception of the girl in Superdrug (who asked me, "Would you like a bag?") everyone just started putting my shopping into plastic bags for me, despite my very visible bag-for-life, until I told them that I didn't need one. So there we are - in one day I've saved four carrier bags.
I may never take another carrier bag again! But then what will I do for bin liners?
