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Today’s the day! Callooh callay!

carrierbags

This is the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this is the day supermarkets in Britain which have more than 250 employees are required by law to charge customers 5p for a shopping bag.

They can do what they like with the money they collect, provided it goes to a ‘worthy cause.’ One worthy cause might be a charity for providing free shopping bags to Britons pissed off by radical green legislation that keeps making it through Parliament somehow, even though they never win an election anywhere, ever (except Brighton, ’nuff said). Bets are, the Prime Minister’s bobble-headed soft-left wife is behind this one.

The papers have decided on a sarky approach to the general public disgruntlement. And the disgruntled general public is inclined to be sarky right back about the difference it’s gonna make to ‘the environment.’

See, when they did this in Wales, supermarket bag use was reduced by 71%. Which looks like a minor something useful until you reflect that those supermarket bags have been replaced by ‘bags for life’ — which, naturally, aren’t for life. Duh. They use roughly ten times the plastic, cost about ten times as much and last about ten times as long as regular bags. That’s what we call a wash. Except, if you reuse them enough, they pick up all sorts of nifty bugs from your raw food.

Today we went shopping, put our stuff in ‘bags for life’ — and bought a roll of small garbage bags for the kitchen messy bin, where recycled carrier bags used to do. Take that, gaia! Virtue signalling is my new favorite term of abuse.

Truth is, this is just one more pointless, pushy lefty inconvenience in a life made increasingly pinched and gray by neopuritan gesture politics.

Comments


Comment from Monty James
Time: October 5, 2015, 11:30 pm

This doesn’t stop until these people are made to feel pain. My suggestion? Cut yourself about three feet of garden hose, proceed from there.


Comment from The Neon Madman
Time: October 5, 2015, 11:52 pm

Trust me, it ain’t any better on this side of the pond.

Back in elementary school, these were the kids who couldn’t play the game worth a damn, but had to be the ones who made the rules.


Comment from Nina
Time: October 6, 2015, 12:09 am

People in California raised a fuss, and it’s on hold until some judge rules that it’s groovy and not at all violating a company’s basic right to provide to their customers simple luxuries like disposable plastic bags.


Comment from Mitchell
Time: October 6, 2015, 12:10 am

Pick up crochet and make your own bags! I’ve made several and they’re great.


Comment from Mrs Compton
Time: October 6, 2015, 12:27 am

Would you share your pattern, Mitchell?


Comment from Pupster
Time: October 6, 2015, 12:54 am

Don’t encourage him Mrs. C.

Just recycle your used tops.

http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/make-a-shopping-bag-out-of-a-t-shirt-then-take-it-once-step-further/


Comment from Mitchell
Time: October 6, 2015, 2:17 am

*Sticks tongue out at Pupster*

I would Mrs. Compton, but I just made them up as I went along really and I didn’t write anything down. Basically just round bottoms in double crochet then a net with chains and triple crochets, then a single crochet top edge with handles. Here’s a sample.


Comment from Pupster
Time: October 6, 2015, 2:27 am

*cough_baby-hats-gonebad_cough*


Comment from JuliaM
Time: October 6, 2015, 4:53 am

Have you read the list of exemptions? A creative supermarket could get round this easily.

One of them, for example, if ‘bags including promotional material’. So slip one of those monthly recipes & vouchers booklets in, and viola! Free bag!


Comment from mojo
Time: October 6, 2015, 5:57 am

As with the original Puritans, the suffer from “the secret fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves.”


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: October 6, 2015, 1:36 pm

The low-cost but good-quality grocery chain I shop at the most, Save-a-Lot, charges .03 for their small plastic bags and .05 for the larger. This I suspect helps keep the costs down below Walmart on some items, and on par with the big store on others. However, being the nickel-squisher I am, I reuse one of their larger bags, and also carry and reuse one of the plastic book bags my employer’s library gives away. Eventually the bags break or split, and it’s time for a new one of each.


Comment from Timothy S. Carlson
Time: October 6, 2015, 4:32 pm

Not any better in the Philippines either. I let the manager of my local market know how friggin’ STUPID is the whole idea of paper bags instead of plastic, every time I go shopping there. There’s a visible cringe whenever she sees me. Good, share the pain.


Comment from tibby
Time: October 6, 2015, 7:19 pm

Thank you Timothy, I smiled.


Comment from feynmangroupie
Time: October 7, 2015, 1:36 am

I used to be such a law-abiding citizen. Nowadays, every time they declare something evil, I feel an overwhelming need to buy it/use it/eat it/do it.


Comment from Ben
Time: October 7, 2015, 1:51 am

Virtue Signaling: The White Tweeters Burden

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