Shopping Bags

For years now, I have carried a shopping bag in my pocket. It sits there ready for use, and until recently I had a battle with shop staff to stop them giving me more bags. However, now you are frequently asked if you really need a bag. Particularly when just in the village shops, I will refuse by joking “I have enough to carry”

While it has taken a few years to happen, I don't think that any retailer will ever return to the situation where bags are dished out like confetti. But it shows that a change in attitude is possible and the majority of people do take their own shopping bags with them to the supermarket or shops.

Yet when I was a child, that was the normal situation and the supermarkets would charge for each bag you used. Therefore the situation is returning to what was and should be normal. This normality has already had other effects, as I have noticed fewer discarded bags littering the countryside. It does still happen, people are careless about discarding bags, but reducing the volume that are doled out reduces this problem.

The lesson is that attitudes can be changed. While there are still some folks who cant be bothered to reuse bags, and will toss out rubbish without regard over the past two years, there really has been a switch from these folks being in the majority to being the minority. That said, today at Tesco the woman on the till still packed some of my shopping into plastic bags even though I had my own jute bags. Well it was simply that I was not advertising their store.