On Wal-Mart and Environmentalism
 

I encountered an absurd amount of supreme stupidity yesterday. While Paul and I were at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things (namely the shirts and headphones), I realized I'd forgotten my reusable grocery bags. Wal-Mart had some for sale by the register, and, hey... they're only a buck, and I only have 5, anyway. I can stock up. So I hand it to the clerk, she rings it up... and bags it and my purchases in a plastic grocery bag.

Yes, she bagged my reusable bag. In a disposable bag.

/me headdesk headdesk headdesk

The cashier must not have realized what the bags were for. I always ask explicitly (when i manage to remember my canvas bags)... You can't always expect people to be up to par on environmental issues :) That's pretty silly though. Sometimes when I go grocery shopping with my canvas bags and I tell the cashier I don't need their plastic bags, they just kind of.... stare..... at me until I start putting things in my bags, then they get the point. It's just an unfamiliar concept to some people. :shrug:

The bags say one them:

"Paper or plastic? Neither! Use these instead!"

In large letters.

Hahahahahahaha

I saw those the last time I was there and laughed. The idea of walmart pushing sustainability just strikes me as, um, sorta funny. Actually now that I think about it, maybe I should get one - a way to poignantly remind myself of why I am not buying everything I see anymore.

Putting the bag IN A BAG - too funny! Thanks for sharing!

Yeah, I thought this was going to be a thread about what an evil empire Walmart is and why we should not shop there. ;)

I did, too!!! How funny :lol:

Maybe she thought you were giving to someone as a gift??? :D

I watched a clerk put my groceries once in plastic bags and THEN in my canvas bag!!

You have to think about it. That is what they are used to doing. It's a habit. Ring the item, bag it and do it again and again. The cashier probably wasn't really thinking about it. Can't say I may not have done it myself. I know for a fact that there needs to be more emphasis on customer service.

And... WalMart is making strides in sustainability. They are doing all kinds of things to become greener and encouraging their employees to do things too.

But all that aside... It was humorous!

This is so funny, especially since I'm working on crocheting market bags from some hideous shiny cord I bought at a liquidator store a while back. Some are green and some are yellow, and they were super cheap. They obviously were left over ends from some industrial purpose. I couldn't imagine what they had been used for.

This stuff is horrible to crochet with, because it seems supple, but is really rather stiff and hard on the fingers. It's making great market bags (finished one and am working on another). They're so strong I could probably carry bowling balls in them, but my hands hurt after crocheting for about ten minutes, so they are taking forever.

They're going to be great to use, though.

I have the bag that my great-grandmother used in Romania and Germany pre-WWII. It's great, it looks like a dark red leather wallet until you open it up and there comes this bag. I don't use it, but I love having it.

And I thought that this thread was going to be about the evils of Wal-Mart. I'm still glad I haven't shopped there in years.

That is too funny, in a sad sort of way...! :dizzy:

I've gotten the "evil's of Walmart and Sam's Club" lecture from friends, but when they pay all of my bills they can tell me where to shop.

My husband and I are on a very tight budget as we're both on disability.
Whenever possible, we buy from charity thrift stores, yard sales... We start our reguluar grocery and household shopping at a Mom & Pop liquidation store (they get healthfood and gourmet shop as well as typical grocery store overruns, and sell at about 1/5 - 1/10 of retail). An oriental grocery is another stop, as they sell some local produce at a great price. Aldi a discount grocery is often a stop, but for many things we do shop Walmart and Sam's club, because there isn't an affordable alternative.

When I went on Medicare, I found that my prescription costs for one month was nearly Medicare's allottment for the entire year. I went to the local pharmacies (big franchises and privately owned) with a list of my prescriptions and asked the pharmacists to give me a price list and suggestions for cheaper alternatives that I could request my doctor to prescribe instead. Every pharmacist told me it would take a few days and promised to mail me the results (except for the Sam's club pharmacist, she told me she could do it right away if I could wait a few minutes). Of the rest, only Walmart followed through and mailed me the results, and of the private pharmacies, two "lost" my list. Our current pharmacy, I found out charged a "cash" price that was half what they charged insurances, but since it had to be submitted to the Part D insurance there was no way to give me the "cash" price until after I had exceeded the Medicare maximum. Sam's Club was the cheapest (by FAR), and that's what we went with. By buying the Sam's Club $100 membership, I was able to cut my prescription costs by 70% right off the top. The pharmacist was amazingly helpful and would find ways to get me even larger discounts (such as coupons and rebates from the drug reps), and helped me discover that my NSAID was causing my asthma (allowing me to cut another $450 from my monthly drug costs). She also suggested buying several of my medications at double doses and cutting the pills in half (it's crazy that most drugs are the same, or nearly the same price regardless of the dose).

As a result, I went from a reluctant Walmart/Sam's Club shopper to a vocal advocate, especially in regard to their pharmacies and customer service.

I am glad you have had a positive experience and that people have been so helpful to you. :hug:

It's so nice to hear someone tell the goods of the company. So many people think the company is bad because all they hear is negative. I'm glad you have had such a positive experience.

It think it would be very bad if this was an "unfamiliar concept" to some people - especially to cashiers. Yes, I can imagine that part of is probably habit because they have been using the disposable plastic bags for years and years .... but these days, when so many customers bring their own canvas bags (and pretty much every chain sells these adorned with their logo) it is not inexcusable for a cashier not to realize what the bag is for.

I have to admit I still sometimes forget to bring the canvas bag with me when I go grocery shopping, but for the most part, I bring it with me. However, I still have to tell the bagger to put "as much as possible" into the canvas bag, they tend to put too few items in there and then they proceed to shove the rest into the disposable ones. My neverending beef is that they do not utilize the plastic bags to their own potential and leave them half empty. After all,who CARRIES the groceries home these days? Pretty much everybody comes in a car.

To kaplods - Thumbs up to you for being able to find a cheaper source of your meds.

Kaplods, like you, I am on a very expensive medication routine. I buy most of my prescriptions now under Walmart's $4.00 plan and get my others through the mail with Medco. I am going to always buy mine where I can most easily afford it. I do have my Dr. write my Clonidine and Prednisone in double strength and break them in half so the bottle lasts twice as long.

As for the cloth bags at Walmart, I have saw them but I haven't bought any yet. I shop for 2 weeks at a time and normally have about 20 bags of groceries, so the cost of the bags would be a little expensive that first time. But, now that it's came to mind, I need to just go ahead and buy them. I guess part of the put-off to me with the bags is if I carry that many bags into the store with me, will they think I'm shoplifting?

Wal-mart was a good place for my retired Dad who was a teacher to work so he could have benefits until he was eligible for SS/Medicare. He worked in the sporting goods area. His only complaint was how customers and sometimes management treated him and other workers. He had sooooo many stories about customers talking down to him and some with management doing the same thing. My dad is very highly educated and he is a nice guy. It is a shame that some people think so highly of themselves that they can't or won't be nice. I think the movie Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze says it all when he is lecturing the bouncers/coolers on how to "be nice".

With reusable bags, especially those made out of some sort of cloth, you won't need as many because they are stronger. If you normally need 20 plastic bags, you can probably use 10 or less cloth bags.

Personally, I love the little plastic Wal*Mart bags. I have a bag keeper on the wall in my laundry room. Those suckers come in handy for the car trash, dirty diapers, dirty laundry when I stay the night away from home, carrying a change of shoes, lunch, whatever. Rather than be seen as disposable, to me, they're simply reusable. ;)

While they may be reusable for one or two times, the issue really is that plastic bags can take as much as 1000 years to decompose.

I've started a plastic "yarn" ball made by cutting the bags in strips. There are patterns online for welcome mats, baby bibs, market bags, trash cans, coasters, all sorts of things. (there are also patterns using cassete and videocassette tape and old CD's). Not that I see any of them being handed down generation to generation for 1000 years.

We reuse all of ours as well. But Wal*Mart does recycle plastic bags. You can take any plastic bags to a Wal*Mart store and put them in their recycle bins. They've been doing that for years. They also recycle cardboard, plastic from freight, hangers, paper and aluminum cans.

I'm not a fan of those "environmentally safe" bags at Walmart and all the grocery stores. They just don't seem very sanitary to me, especially when the bagger puts meat into them! I try to catch them before they do that, but sometimes it's too late then I have to throw away that particular "environmentally friendly" bag.

Also, they start to stink after a few grocery trips. I used to keep them in my car so I wouldn't forget them, but after a couple weeks I started smelling this horrible stink. Finally I pinpointed the smell, and it was the bags. I threw them all away. Yuck.

I use the plastic bags when I'm scooping litterboxes. I've got 9 cats, so believe me they all get used. I like the ones from Target the best, they are sturdier than Walmart's plastic bags.

Uh ... washing machine? They're canvas. They can be washed.

Americans are too tied up in being "sanitary", IMO, and in so doing are destroying our environment.

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I have environmental friendly bags and they never smell or have problems. I don't buy meat though so it isn't an issue.

I buy meat and I've never had a problem with mine. I have washed a couple of them - not because of meat issues, but because once a quart of milk leaked, and a couple of times just because they got "grungy" looking.

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I think she meant the plastic bags...and called them "environmentally friendly" because of being able to recycle them at Wally world.

I use canvas bags too....my main hang up is remembering to put the dang things in my car!

RE: meat: Those are the only items I will put in a plastic bag. I realize it does not totally eliminate plastic bags from the environment, but it helps!

Here is a suggestion - if you have abundance of plastic grocery bags, you may want to bring them to a charity store (like Salvation Army). I take mine to a local charity store run by the Mennonites and also to my vet's - they use them to pick up poop (just like I do).
I actually fold them very neatly and when I have a pile I take it one of the two places I mentioned. They always seem to be surprised that I take the effort to flatten them and fold them - I think the plastic bag may bring out the obsessive-compulsive gene in me. :-)

My daughter gave a college speech on this, a plastic bag takes 1,000 years to break down. I had no idea. We try to take bags with us but I often forget so then ask for paper. If I get plastic I have to sneak in the house with it and then we recycle it.

The Whole Foods bags are on Ebay for hundreds. That isn't cool but I guess it's become a fashion trend.