ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Sometimes, I think lemmings got the idea to follow the leader from homo sapiens (us). The reason I make the suggestion is that lately, we have been falling all over each other to be seen with the latest style item, the ‘little black bag’. This is not a stylish purse for the ladies but rather that canvas item that Galen Weston Jr. is taking a bow over, the re-usable grocery bag. The Weston group of food stores including Zehrs, Valu-mart, Superstore and Loblaws sell the bags for a buck a piece and shoppers loved them. Apparently this project was so successful; they ran out of bags earlier in the summer. While most of the other grocers offered a reusable shopping bag made from recycled material, Weston Jr.’s bag
is also recyclable. Customers are encouraged to return them to the retailer when they're worn out so they can be used to make more bags. Neat hook, eh?

Sitting here on the verandah and watching folks bring in their groceries in these bags made me think of the lemming comparison. The rodents have been reputed to jump off cliffs just because their buddies up ahead did the same thing.

We may act like lemmings sometimes but for this argument, it has a positive outcome. It is fair to say most folks don’t really want to leave an environmental mess behind for the next generation. But we have been brought up with this disposable lifestyle aided by the advancements made in plastic manufacture. We replaced glass pop bottles with plastic, milk bottles with plastic, steel cars with plastic and now paper bags with plastic. In the last 20 years or so, when we went to the grocery store, we were offered these handy little bags which hold only two or three items. After a day shopping for the Big House, I came in with five plastic bags in each hand and still had room for something under my arm. When I unpacked those groceries, there were more bags than groceries! And where did they go? Stuffed into the garbage, out of sight, out of mind.

Not so. These things don’t break down, they last for millennia. Have you driven down London way to see their rising mountain of a land fill site? The operators of the big dump seem to take pleasure in releasing these bags on windy days and like pigeons they fly through the air only to be caught in nearby trees. And those are just the ones that got away. The rest are being buried with the rest of our cast-offs, taking up space in these land fills. As Jed Clampett would say, “Pitiful, jes pitiful.”

I don’t think Galen Weston Jr. was the first kid on the block to come up with the idea. Taking your own wicker basket to market was the style 200 years ago. No one was making take-home containers for consumers back then; you had to figure out how you were going to carry the bacon and eggs home.

But baskets do take up space and in the last 100 years, we consumers prepared less food at home and we bought more groceries; we needed more take-home capacity. The paper sack was invented. That alternative has lasted much of my life time but those sacks were limited in their usefulness, too. No handles meant you could only really carry one at a time. Since the petroleum business needed another outlet for its production, plastic bags with handles were created. By the time the 80’s came along, grocery packers had to learn to say, “Paper or plastic?” Plastic won 9 out of 10 times so grocers eventually took that option away from us and I’ll be jiggered if you can see a paper sack anywhere now.

Since the environment has become the latest hot button, I am sure Weston and his ilk saw a few tree-hugging shoppers bringing their own home-made canvas bags to their stores and they thought, “Can’t have any of this going on in my store.” So they introduced their own bags. Some black, some green. Very well built items, I must say and I doubt if mine will ever wear out.

And the rest is history. Since I have found this religion, the bags are in the back seat of the flivver and every time I need something from the food store, I carry them along with me. Now we are seeing added marketing hooks with these bags. Weston’s stores now offer you ‘points’ on their allegiance card if you use the reusable bags. I am waiting for the cashier to say, “You saved 10 plastic bags, here’s a dollar off your groceries.” Yeah, right, and fish will fly.

I don’t mind the extra work involved in using these bags, they hold more, they are stronger and I make fewer trips from the car to the Big House, so I am happy. Plus, I don’t have to dispose of all those bags.

You know when an idea is really sound? When everyone else wants to jump on the band wagon. I was at the drug store last night to pick up some snake oil and the cashier said, “Do you want one of our reusable bags? They are free.” Looked and felt just like Weston’s bag but is blue in colour. Now you know this trend is here to stay.