Actually, thinking about it, I don't know whether this is greed at all.
Last Friday, my usual shopping day, Sainsburys was heaving. (In Beaconsfield. Not an unaffluent part of the Home Counties.) Unusually so. Really, really full. I wondered if there had been some emergency notification that I hadn't heard, and maybe people were stocking up. Flood warning? Hurricanes, Tatars massing at the gates, a flock of giant flesh-eating zombie ants? A Bank Holiday that had passed me by?
But no.
Free plastic bags.
I kid you not.
The usual flimsy orange numbers were absent, and the checkouts were offering the sturdier version zippily titled 'a Bag for Life'. (See what they did there? Not only will the bag last for your entire lifetime, it also affirms the general goodness of Life Itself. Wow. These marketing people are clever.) (Oh, and as soon as your Bag for Life wears out, you swap it for an absolutely free replacement.) The thing is, these Bags for Life normally Cost. Yesseree Bob, they cost money. You don't get to display your Committment to a Better Life for All, for Cleaner Water for Disadvantaged Children, Universal Franchise and Making Poverty History, without paying.
10p.
Once again, no kidding. Ten. Pee. People were queueing round the block for bags that normally go for TEN P A POP. How many bags would you need for one shop? Seven? Nine, ten maximum? Let's say ten bags, it makes the maths easier. Ten bags, ten pence - yup. People were rescheduling their days, clogging up the roads, don't even think about the extra petrol, buying stuff they didn't need (ooh! that tin of larks' tongues, maybe 100g of that newt eyes / frog toes combo from the deli might just push me over into another bag! Yess!) to get ONE POUND'S WORTH OF FREE STUFF.
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A perfectly reasonable life spins out of control . . .
About Me
- Mangonel
- Dealer in disease, destruction and death with a kick like a mule. And a BIG crush on Stephen Mangan. Which Significant Other knows nothing about.
Things to do before I die
- See the Aurora Borealis
- Take an actual proper music exam
- Read Clarissa
- Visit Everest Base Camp and see the Khumbu Ice Falls
8 comments:
Missed out on that one by bringing my own bags that day anyway! No, I did take one, but I left it at my friend's house as a gift for countersigning the children's passport applications.
Yes, bonkersness. My mother is a great believer in buying things that she wouldn't have dreamt of buying if they weren't reduced. She fails to see that this isn't, in fact, a bargain. Anyway, why isn't Sainsbury's going all cloth-bags now? That green town in Devon (or somewhere down there) has gone no-plastic. Something to do with dolphins, apparently.
golly our Sainsbury doesn't do newt eyes/frog toes combo!
see, I miss out on all this excitement by doing my shopping on-line; mind you, means I have more time for all reading about the excitement that everyone else blogs about. . .
this doesn't overlap, does it, with the designer fabric bags in limited edition sainsbury commissioned from anya hindmarch, does it? the lady on check out today told me people were queuing for them from 4am!!!!! and most of them ended up on ebay shortly afterwards too.
sometimes, i seem relatively sane
Sylvia, you generous soul. Were you channelling Milena? (Where is she btw? Shopping in Milan I expect.)
BiB, very depressing article in Saturday's Guardian about how whole towns in China are basing their fragile economies on sorting out our plastic rubbish. We can't go not-plastic now - Chinese babies wold starve in the street. *sigh*.
jpz - if you do find it, don't bother - gets a bit gritty sometimes.
Oh I,LTV - I've done that online shopping too, and all I get is more plastic bags.
RG - the Hindmarsh Bag-athon was a couple of days before, and apparently cakes have never been hotter. 45 minutes to sell-out in my local.
Milena no doubt shops very stylishly, hailing from the land of the fashion victim as she does. She certainly wouldn't have Waynetta Slob as her role model - Milena IS a role model.
As a user of Bags For Life, I should say that they won't actually last for a lifetime (well, not a human lifetime anyway). Isn't it supposed to be better for the environment to use an ordinary carrier back a few times than to use Bags For Life (according to some report in The Guardian)?
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