Cashiers Are Killing Us Softly with Plastic Bags

We've all experienced the rise of our blood pressure on a visit to any given retail store and, on occasion, the symptoms of a minor heart attack when we see the taxes top up our bill. However, that's not the real threat to us humans and our environment. The real threat lies just underneath the retail checkout counter and it's about to choke us all to death.

Yes, it's the plastic bag. Cashiers are ruthlessly drowning all of us in plastic bags.

Case in point: Have you bought a gift card lately? Well I just did a few weeks ago when I realized I had, yet again, forgotten my niece's birthday and had to come up with a present, pronto. After racking my brain on what I could get her for about, oh, 10 minutes, a gift card seemed the perfect fit. So, off to the local Best Buy I went.

After entering the big blue box, I selected the denomination of gift card, waited dutifully in the line-up and happily went up to the cashier when, of course, I was allowed. Easy as pie - no hassle, no wasted time. (No warm welcome either by the young woman at the other side of the counter but, that is another topic.)

As I reached to pull out my trusted debit card, I noticed the cashier reaching for a plastic bag at the same time. Yes, a freaking plastic bag to hold a gift card. And not a tiny greeting card sized bag you'd get at a Hallmark store either. This baby was big enough to tote a laptop.

The cashier had barely touched the bag when I immediately - and, admittedly, with a smidge of disgust in my voice - let the words out, "that's o.k.....I don't need a bag, thanks." Why I'd even have to relay this instruction to her is still beyond me. Yet, it was clear the young woman with the various facial piercings simply hadn't computed how ridiculous a plastic bag was for a thin little card the size of my palm. But, hey, sometimes people get into autopilot when they are working and don't really think before they act.

Unfortunately, the stupidity didn't end there. Instead of putting the barely touched, unwrinkled and unused plastic bag back on the pile of other neatly pressed plastic, the cashier, with a slight shrug of her shoulder, scrunched the bag into a little ball then threw it in the garbage bin next to her. What the ....????? I couldn't believe my eyes. I think I stood there for about 30 seconds with my mouth gaping open.

The irony is, retailers all over Canada are promoting and selling re-usable tote bags. Loblaws even went to the extent of running a mass advertising campaign in support of plastic bag reduction. So what is it exactly their own employees don't get? I've seen the television ads. I've seen the canvass bags neatly displayed for sale at the check out. Do the cashiers not realize the objective is to reduce the use of plastic or are they getting it confused with the need to push more credit cards?

I don't know the answer but, I do know, every time I'm in a store, I'm the one training the cashiers to stop forcing their plastic bags on me. No, I don't need 10 bags for eight items. And, yes, I will bring in the canvass tote bags (I bought at your store, by the way) and actually expect you to fill them with the merchandise I just purchased, without looking at me like I'm a total pain-in-the-ass.

In a day where the public is, and rightfully so, chastising corporations for spewing oil into the ocean, decimating forests and generally giving the big middle finger to the environment and human health, it can be frightening to watch the worker-bees do, to some degree, pretty much the same thing.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the front-line folks but, it's the easiest place to start making progress. This is a behaviour we can change so, give the environment a break guys. The last thing any of us needs is another non-biodegradable plastic bag in a landfill site or floating in a river, choking up our water systems. Take a lesson from your employers and start pushing the canvass bags instead.

Forget the plastic and perhaps your customers will too.