Nobody Wants to be the bad Guy

Yesterday, I went into Food Bizarre to check in with the manager on the status of the plastic bag usage.  Since it has been about four to six weeks since signs were posted announcing the 5-cent rebate, I was curious to see if any progress was made.  Brian told me right away that nothing has changed, and I was not surprised, but I was not going to drop the challenge.  We talked a little about what could be done to encourage people to bring their own bags.  When I suggested a tax, even a 5-cent tax for using the plastic bags, Brian backed away, saying that the people here would go ballistic if that were to be imposed on them.  I told them that it was done in DC and other places, but I could tell from his reaction that Brian did was not fond of the idea…..

I tried to think of more ways to make it known and encourage the shoppers to take advantage of the rebate.  Making more signs, and maybe even more interesting or eye catching ones, and placing them by the cash registers rather than just at the entrance and exit of the store were some of my suggestions.  Brian thought of adding it to the weekly sales circular.  There are definitely many things to be done to try to encourage people to bring their own bags, but I am afraid that even with these efforts, the results may not be very big.  Maybe if the cashiers were told to mention the rebates verbally to each customer the people may become more aware.

The truth that nobody wants to look in the eye is that people don’t want to give up the convenience of coming to the store and having the cashier put groceries in the plastic bags provided by the store.  It has become normal and easy for us, and if people were charged a tax, they would have to make a huge effort, and they would be annoyed.  I can understand Brian not wanting to cause a negative stir in his shopping clientele- he wants his customers to be happy and keep coming to the store.  He is afraid of looking like the bad guy if he were to impose a tax on the bags, and if it were not a city wide law, he could risk loosing shoppers to other stores that do not charge a tax. 

As a leaseholder who rents out rooms in my apartment to help pay the rent, I deal with similar issues with roommates.  While there have been times where I was inspired by and taken on some of  the careful environmental practices of my roommates, there are other times (like now) when I hope that my roommates will be inspired by my choices.  In little meetings at the beginning of their stay, I tell them where we store the plastic bags which we use for garbage, and point out that the reusable bags are there, too, to take to the store.  I also tell them that this means a lot to me, and I tell them about Back to the Sack and invite them to come to meetings.  But in the past few months, our bag drawer has been overflowing with plastic.  It is upsetting to me, and once in a while I’ll try to slip in a friendly reminder about bringing reusable bags to the grocery, but I don’t want to feel like the roommate Nazi, and so at this point, besides a few gentle comments, I have resigned myself to doing my part, and hoping they might follow.  But I, like Brian, am afraid to disrupt the comfortable living situation.

I feel weak in not fighting more strongly to have the people around me use fewer plastic bags, but I am not giving up.  I set my example of being as environmentally conscious as possible, and maybe some people will see it as something they would like to do.  In the meantime, I am always open to ideas on how to spread these practices.