logos999

>drinks container problem.
Those old Pepsi and Coke cans surface here in China. It was clear they wouldn't just throw the machinery away that produced them. Funny... The whole can has only chinese characters on it, except for the "Dispose of properly" and "Please don't litter" imprinted on the top. When you open it, you have the little metal ring on you finger, that you have to throw away seperatly. Those were the days...

BTilke

The grocery store (Rob's Fine Foods) that we shop at in Brussels still offers free bags AND they bag the groceries. Ditto for the large epicerie we sometimes shop at out in Fort Jaco.
As for UK v. American shopping checkout lines, FlUK is back to his usual sourpuss anti-American condescension after a brief respite. The lines at our local Waitrose are NO faster than the lines at the Wegman's in the Lehigh Valley or even the Costco in Sequim, WA. The Waitrose is usually slower, actually. And the Wegman's offers MUCH better food selections than any of the Waitrose stores we shopped at. The staff at Wegman's are highly efficient and knowledgeable. We've shoppsed at plenty of British grocery stores where the staff were as clueless and indifferent as anyone FlUK claims to have encountered on the other side of the Atlantic.

zippo

Nobody gives you free bags - you pay for them. You also pay for the "free" bagging.Work it out.

Nutella

Bags aside, I wish American groceries would adopt the European practice of requiring plastic gloves to handle the produce!

kerouac

And where is that? In France, we fondle, squeeze and rummage around the fruits and vegetables with our grimy hands.

papagena

Italy has the plastic gloves - so much more hygienic for the fruit and vegetables you eat raw.

MissPrism

I don't know where you people shop.
I shopped today in Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys.
In each shop the assistant asked if I wanted help with packing. Canon Chasuble prides himself on his packing abilities so we always refuse.
Sainsburys have a bag recycling bit in the shop and skips for bottles outside in the car-park.
One thing that I noticed in the US is that the poor check-out clerks have to stand up.

suze

Schuler, Good tip about the coin and the shopping carts... Boy was I ever puzzled that first time I shopped alone at Placette/Manor in Vevey. A kind local pantomimed what I needed to do to get the cart out of the rack.

Cimbrone

We in the U.S. think nothing of downing glass bottles of drinks and tossing them in the trash when we're done. (A massive waste of energy and landfill space for, maybe, two minutes of refreshment.) It's obscene that our packaging materials have not evolved to more compactable and more recyclable ones.

marginal_margiela

What a perfect reason to invest in a Goyard tote to put your groceries in!

lucielou

Here in Ireland an enviornmental levy has been charged on plastic bags costing the customer 15c per bag, for a thin plastic bag, different supermarkets offer their own type of stronger bags which cost €1 each and are life long, if they break or tear, they will give you a new one free. In Ireland 99% of people wouldnt dream of going to do their grocery shopping without bringing their own bags!

Reading the previous posts about American supermarkets, they sound lovely to me, its nice to have your bags packed for you and not to be rushed through and ignored, I wish it were like that here.

lucielou

I forgot to mention in my previous post we've had the levy about 3 yrs now in Ireland, and its been a great success, its cut down on waste, and you dont see these unsightly bags thrown around the place.

PatrickLondon

It wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to employ baggers to pack shoppers' own bags.

But I see walkinaround's point about different cultures. For myself, I've reached the age where - to me - it seems obvious that the spotty youth volunteering to pack my bags has got a "doddery old wrinkly" mindset in place, whereas I KNOW I can do it better than they can!

Plus, a lot of us are not that chatty (I can just about remember before supermarkets, and I would die rather than go back to endless chitchat in all the different shops while the queues build up).

ira

Here in our small, technologically backward town in GA, all of our grocery stores have both checkout clerks and "Self serve" lines.

Many people prefer to use the lines with clerks, even if the lines are longer.

All of the checkout stations are computerized laser scanners.

We have free plastic or paper bags.

There are recycle stations for plastic bags at the supermarkets.

The cats like to hide in the paper bags.

The plastic bags are good for disposing of cat poop.

Nikki

It is not true everywhere in the US tht we throw away glass bottles. Where I live and in many other places there are deposits on glass and plastic soda and beer bottles and cans, and those bottles that do not have deposits can be recycled.

The supermarkets also collect the used plastic bags for recycling, as Ira said.

PalenqueBob

<Using market pressure to gain favored terms in discounts is illegal under the Robinson-Packman Antitrust Act>

Well this may be on the books but if WalMart is any indication it is not enforced uniformly as the Wal folks are notorious for chiseling great deals or they won't even carry your item. Maybe because they were one of the top donor to W's campaigns is a reason for them getting away with it.

kerouac

When my parents were living in Florida, they scrupulously kept all of their newspapers and bottles for the big bins. They did not really worry about plastic or metal all that much. But basically, there is no constraint to oblige people to recycle -- and not all that many people did. When money is involved, people are a lot more careful.

Cimbrone

Nikki-This is true, although I'd be interested to see what percentage of glass bottles are actually recycled or returned for deposit.

I saw a report on recycling, by the way, that said the tremendous amount of energy (as in electricity) required to recycle glass negates most if not all of the benefits. If we would go to the collapsable cardboard and mylar containers so popular in parts of Europe, it would be a big step forward.

PalenqueBob

reducing packaging is the best way to recycle - reusing bags better than recycling them. The French, for whatever reason, are to be applauded for making consumers use their own bags. Recycling containers is an up and down proposition - yes has a do-good feel to it but not economically viable always - except for aluminum cans i believe. Reduce the ridiculous amount of packaging is the way to go - not only with grocery bags but containers in general - hell to bulk foods for example you bring your own container in the store to refill.

elina

"I'd be interested to see what percentage of glass bottles are actually recycled or returned for deposit."

Where I live (Finland) almost 100%. Every store has a machine where you put the bottles (+ another one for cans), and the machine spits out a tag which tells how much money you will get from the cashier. It is ten cents for a small bottle, 50 cents for a big plastic one.

Glass jars are recycled outside the stores. There are two separate containers: one for bright, another one for coloured glass.

There are also separate containers for paper and cardboard. Plus a smaller one for used batteries. And then separate places for so called problem waste, like chemicals, metal, computers and so on.

Plastic bags have never been free here, I have payed for them at least 30 years. That is why people usually use a sturdy cloth shopping-bags. If you want a plastic bag you can choose one that decomposes, it costs the same as an ordinary one.