What? I didn't get that..pay for my grocery plastics because...

Philippines
July 16, 2011 10:00am CST
Recently we received an sms telling us that the grocery store where we used to buy our food stuffs will be charging us extra for the grocery bags(plastics). You are allowed to carry your own grocery bag if you don't want to pay Now my question is this, since they wanted to implement an eco-friendly state which prohibits plastic bags, Question #1: why don't they give brown paper grocery bags instead? besides the customers pay inclusive taxes. Question #2: If they still provide plastics because you just need to pay for it, what is that hypocrisy? I am a consumer and I go to their shop always, would it be more convenient if the store owner would have just provided me shopping bags (eco-friendly ones). I can't imagine myself going to a grocery carrying bags and I don't know if it will fit my weekly grocery, some inconvenience .
1 person likes this
5 responses
@scififan43 (2434)
• United States
30 Jul 11
This is a first I have heard of the customer paying for their grocery bags. in the us at walmart stores you can buy you on resuable bag and put your grociers in it instend of useing plastic bags. everone ealse uses plastic bags here, paper bags were used at one time and is still used in some places.
• Philippines
31 Jul 11
Hi friend, yes I was also surprised when we were asked to pay Rs3 equivalent to almost 7 cents per one big plastic bag. Last shopping we had, we paid 14 cents here in Mumbai.
• United States
2 Aug 11
I see, it doesn't sould like to people here, but the cost can add up.
@myfb2009 (8296)
• Malaysia
22 Jul 11
It is quite common in my area here, where we need to pay for the plastic bag if we don't bring along our own bag. Nowadays, there are more and more shopping malls and even some shops also started to charge us from around 10 - 20 cents per plastic bag. At first, i am not familiar to it and do felt angry about this matter. Now, i always bring along my eco-friendly bag with me, whenever i am out from my home. I always bring a few bags with me during shopping, since i can collect points with it. It is good to see those points will be converted into cash coupon, where we can use for buying daily household items.
@myfb2009 (8296)
• Malaysia
22 Jul 11
Yes, minimising the use of plastic bags is a good move to save the earth. Do you mean biodegradable plastic bags? Some of the shopping malls in my area here are using it.
@beingwell (3625)
• Thailand
22 Jul 11
Cool thing myfb! I hope most malls and department stores adhere eco-friendly solutions to help minimize the use of plastics. You know in Thailand, they are studying how to make biodegradable plastics. Great, right?! I hope this technology would stir fire across other nations as well, especially to the first world countries.
• United States
16 Jul 11
I definitely would be finding somewhere else to shop. My husband and I use reusable shopping bags, but that is something we do for our convenience and that of the store's and the environment. Forcing your customers to "do or pay" never works well. In the same respect, I won't work for free at grocery stores, so I never use the self check outs. It's another way to cut money spent (this part I can understand) and cut jobs (this I can't) that I'm not going to support. This reminds me of banks that start charging fees if you get paper statements sent to your home. Because of a mistake made on my bank's behalf years ago back when I used e-statements, I now get all paper statements in my business account. If they were ever to start charging for statements, I'd make sure to stop in the bank at least once a month and go to a customer service desk to get a printed copy. If they charged for that, I'd leave despite being a customer since my parents opened an account with them when I was ten weeks old. As a business owner myself, I understand cutting costs. But if you're going to force something on a customer, expect the morale of both customers and employees to go down the drain--and understandably. Offer benefits to the customer for bringing their own bags (which my grocery store did for awhile, and boy did it work!), but don't force them to only use one option to avoid a fee. Please go elsewhere in this situation...get enough people to stop spending money there, and it'll make a statement.
• Philippines
17 Jul 11
@Lovinglife- yes this is what my hubby and I talked about. We can just look for another shop for our groceries. I am just worried because that store is the only one I considered complete with Western products that I used a lot for my cooking . It's really hard to be away from my own country too.
• India
18 Aug 11
Are you speaking about Mumbai Here in Orissa also plastic bags are banned, but no body observes, all know these plastic bags are NOT biodegradable, clog drains, intestine of cows, cause dummy flodd in streets during rains.. Thanks for sharing Best of luck. Professor
@beingwell (3625)
• Thailand
21 Jul 11
Hi straw! We also have that thing going in Thailand. Actually, there's a mall that promotes eco-friendly day here. We don't have to pay for the plastic bag on that day, but we can get 5% discount from the things we bought if we don't use plastics. Anyway, instead of giving incentives, your grocery store opts to discourage you to use plastics by paying a fee for each bag. I think Bench is doing the same strategy. If my memory serve me right, I think we were charged a few bucks by using their plastic bags on their "paper bag" day. Oh well!
@myfb2009 (8296)
• Malaysia
22 Jul 11
That's is really a good way of saving some bucks if every shopping malls is able to give out discount whenever w don't use their plastic bags. Unfortunately, no shopping malls in my area is giving this kind of offers yet. My here, only can collect points for bringing own eco-friendly bags.
@beingwell (3625)
• Thailand
22 Jul 11
Well, that's another incentive for not using plastics. That's a good start, myfb! How many points have you collected so far? Um...what can you do with these points?