Reuse those Reusable Bags

BLOGGER BIO: ZEHRA

Zehra

Zehra (EcoDesi) is a programmer by profession, environmentalist by nature. She believes that no effort is too small and everyone should think of this earth as a gift as opposed to a right. The EcoDesi mantra is that when we take into account the monetary cost of buying something then let us also look at the environmental cost.

09/30/2010

Reuse those Reusable Bags

Hello, EcoDesi here.

Yes, I know, I’ve been missing for a while and I want to apologize for my absence. Things have been topsy turvy in the EcoDesi world lately and it’s taking a while to recover. But time heals and after a lengthy absence I’ve been able to put pen to paper or rather fingers to keyboard and type up the next installment in the series.

For a while now I’ve been trying to implement my no plastic bag rule in every store I shop. It’s easy to hand my reusable bags to the cashiers at most grocery, clothing or department stores and more often than not he or she puts the plastic bag aside and starts stuffing my purchases in the reusable bag. It’s great because I don’t have to deal with all the bags when I come home and feel guilty about throwing them out. However, when I do the same thing at the Indian/Pakistani ethnic grocers, I’m usually met by a confused and/or amused look. I’ve even had cashiers say “Don’t worry, we don’t charge for plastic bags here.” I thought about giving a lecture right there and then that it wasn’t the money I was trying to save but the earth, but that would have taken too long so I rather lamely opted to say “Oh, I already have too many bags, I don’t want anymore.”

A recent encounter was particularly strange. I was shopping for meat at the local Halal meat store in Markham and the cashier who was scanning my items was young and seemed very interested in practicing the dying art of customer service. He asked me if I found everything to my liking and I assured him I had. Then I handed him my bags and asked him to use those instead of the plastic ones. His reaction was one of horror. As if I had come to his house and refused to have tea. He insisted that I should take at least one bag and wouldn’t let me leave without one. Our exchange started becoming a scene almost so I finally relented and accepted one plastic bag from him. The whole scene still plays in my mind and I’m still not sure why he was so insistent that I HAD to have a plastic bag.

I’ve shopped at the South East Asian stores and since there is a bit of a language barrier there I thought I would have a hard time there too but, when I handed them my bags they just took them and started filling them up with my purchases. No confused looks, no questions. I guess they were used to people coming with their own bags or maybe they just thought I was strange but didn’t comment. Whatever the reason, I have come to the conclusion that South Asians are way behind in understanding the impact of plastic bags and the benefits of re-usage. On some level I think, it’s even looked down upon.

So my conclusion is that even if it gets a bit awkward, let’s continue the fight because our actions, sooner or later, will make the use of re-usable bags the norm and plastic bags the exception. Even in South Asian stores.