Leaving excess packaging at the checkout

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Leaving excess packaging at the checkout
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chicken feed

Joined: 27 Aug 2009
Posts: 2677

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 10 11:13 am Post subject:
my mum has started to collect junk mail with pre paid envelopes and when they mount up she puts other companys junk mail into the envelopes and puts it in the post i thought she had lost the plot but reading this thread maybe not.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 10 11:22 am Post subject:

mark wrote:

I love supermarket carrier bags - everyone gets re-used - saves me buying bin liners - and i use them for everything from wrapping picknics to seperating dirty socks while on holiday.

They always struck me as the ultimate re-usable and I never saw why people focussed on them as a symbolic item while ignoring the massively wasteful individual packing on supermarket items.

Usually the higher up the supermarket poshness scale they go go the worse it gets - a piece of meat in a metal foil tray - with celephane lid - then wrapped in a multicoloured printed cardboard sleeve!

Now that is what we should have been campaining about - some people need to learn to distinguish between food and a glossy magazine!

Quoted in entirity for truth! How often do you see products with three layers of wrapping go into cotton bags, which are then dumped in the back of 4x4s for the half mile journey home? Verges on hypocrisy or, at least, not getting the point!

Carrier bags aren't that big a deal if you use them over and over, and as often as not you can raid the supermarket carrier bag recycling box even if you're not shopping there.

Its staggering how much wrapping even the simplest of products have in supermarkets; yes, you can for sure leave wrapping at the checkout, some of it at least, but a better option is to shop somewhere with less wrapping.

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 10 12:45 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

... a better option is to shop somewhere with less wrapping.

yay! My opinion exactly. we're very lucky here: no Supermarket for 15 miles (nearest), just a wonderful independent grocers 7 miles away: they don't buy carrier bags, take used ones in for customers to reuse, everything they bag themselves is in a plain cellophane bag, they use paper bags (if you need one!)...

I'll be popping into Sainsbury's in Shrewsbury this afternoon (because I'm going to the flicks) for 2 or 3 things, but I'll take a bag with me and the things I want aren't overpacked to start with so I don't feel bad. First time I've been there this year.

Jools

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 1028
Location: South Wales

Posted: Fri Jul 16, 10 12:23 pm Post subject:

Just a word of warning about buying supermarket loose veg, it's often more expensive per kilo than buying the pre-packed version.

And as an ex-checkout worker, the problem with placing loose veg on the scales is that when you try to weigh it, things roll about and the scales don't like things moving about on them. It would be better if the scales were bowl shaped to contain the stuff, but as they're now incorporated into the till area, that would make it tricky.

Cobnut

Joined: 29 Aug 2008
Posts: 475
Location: North Herefordshire

Posted: Fri Jul 16, 10 1:13 pm Post subject:

nats wrote:

Apparently we are now going to get loads more junk mail from royal mail as well. Should we all take that to the sorting centre or mail it back or something?? I'm so tempted to put it in a large bag and post it to head office with no stamp on and no return address!

If you contact Royal Mail you can opt out of receiving junk mail
https://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?catId=400126&mediaId=500081
I emailed them a week or so ago and I’ve not heard from them yet though

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Fri Jul 16, 10 2:32 pm Post subject:
The problem with opting out of the junk mail that the postie sorts is that you don't get things like stuff from your local council. It's not just repacement windows and insurance.

Anura

Joined: 26 Aug 2009
Posts: 57

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 10 10:50 pm Post subject:
I saw some individual croissants in ASDA which were in their own little individual boxes! I ask you! Sorry that should have been a question mark? Hmm, I assumed that loose veg was cheaper, will have to check.

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18409

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 10 11:01 pm Post subject:

Anura wrote:

Hmm, I assumed that loose veg was cheaper, will have to check.

it usually is, but not always, so worth checking.

JohnB

Joined: 09 Jul 2005
Posts: 685
Location: Beautiful sunny West Wales!

Posted: Wed Nov 24, 10 12:37 am Post subject:

Anura wrote:

Hmm, I assumed that loose veg was cheaper, will have to check.

CKs supermarket in Newcastle Emlyn has recently had mushrooms in a plastic carton at a few pence a kilo less than loose!

Aeolienne

Joined: 03 Apr 2008
Posts: 1498
Location: Leamington Spa, Warks

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 12:14 pm Post subject:

Bernie66 wrote:

I get odd looks when I dump loose veg on the conveyer belt and decline the little pointless plastic bags. And even stranger looks when it all gets chucked loose into a rucksack

Sometimes you have to be quick before some pesky kid packs your shopping into carrier bags and insists on getting paid for it because it's all in aid of their school's jolly junket to the Third World. In my day we never went anywhere further afield than Europe...

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 12:19 pm Post subject:
To Europe? You were lucky....

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18409

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 1:33 pm Post subject:
My plastic carrier bags get re-used and re-used before they meet their end as rubbish-bags for the wheeliebin. Foraging bags Freezer bags Bags for packing stuff in separately when travelling Re-used as shopping bags Binbags for wheeliebin Liners for wastepaper baskets, especially in the bathroom Storage bags

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