is it only me that uses carriers to line my bins & then contain all the shite in the wheely bin so there’s not a stuck on layer of toxic sludge at the bottom?

When they stop giving out bags I ain’t buying bin liners, so my bin’s gonna stink, be full of maggoty goodness & be a (bigger) nightmare for the boys on the wagons

Oh, and I’m gonna get a macerator for the sink too (council says don’t compost due to rats, so here’s to lower refuse weights, blocked sewers, flooding and eutrophication. 😐

surely that is a good thing.

here in ermany plastic carrier bags cost ~50c, sometimes €1 depending on size of the bag.

lots of people here have a dedicated shopping bag. we’ve got a stylish cloth thing the GF sister got from thailand.

one big difference though is that in the UK people tend to do one big shop a week, whereas here we go shopping at least once every two days. and we got by foot. in the UK i think i almost always drove.

here kitchens are generally smaller (more flats than houses) and there are a lot more, yet smaller supermarkets everywhere (three with a five minute walk of where we live) unlike the UK. however UK supermarkets beat german supermarkets handsdown in terms of range of products (can’t get rice here other than “boiled rice” unless you go to an asian place in the city), choice and opening times.

i guess boxes that fold flat would be better in the UK. more practical getting in and out of the car….

germany is relatively clean. don’t often see carrier bags hanging in trees. hardly ever see a discarded plastic bottle. all plastic bottles here have a 25c refund on them. there are armies of poor OAPs collecting them in town.

It’s complete greenwash.

There’s nothing wrong with plastic bags

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/plastic-fantastic-carrier-bags-not-ecovillains-after-all-2220129.html

They do contribute to little though.

Stupid annoying idea. B&Q did it for a while. I went in and spent about £200 on all sorts of stuff. I clearly needed a bag to carry it out, they wanted to charge me 5p, adding that it was for charity. I was incredulous, I’d just spent a big pot of money there and they still wanted to charge me 5p. Even if it is for charity, I think I can decide which charity I give to , how much and when. I was so pissed off for so long that a couple of days later, i dropped by on the way home, picked up loads of little packets of stuff from around the shop, went they tried to charge me 5p for the bag, I told them I wouldn’t buy it and so could carry the stuff and walked out.

We used to pay 5p for bags when I was a kid in Saverite. 5p was a lot more money in the early 80s.

Yeah cos you get shot if you drop anything. Or, for a first offence you get scolded by miserable old ladies.

picked up loads of little packets of stuff from around the shop, went they tried to charge me 5p for the bag, I told them I wouldn’t buy it and so could carry the stuff and walked out.

Well done for sticking it to the man. I imagine the checkout staff who have absolutely no control over the company policy really appreciated your stance.

CharlieMungus – Member
Stupid annoying idea. B&Q did it for a while. I went in and spent about £200 on all sorts of stuff. I clearly needed a bag to carry it out, they wanted to charge me 5p, adding that it was for charity. I was incredulous, I’d just spent a big pot of money there and they still wanted to charge me 5p. Even if it is for charity, I think I can decide which charity I give to , how much and when. I was so pissed off for so long that a couple of days later, i dropped by on the way home, picked up loads of little packets of stuff from around the shop, went they tried to charge me 5p for the bag, I told them I wouldn’t buy it and so could carry the stuff and walked out.

seriously? or are you a troll? i cant believe anyone would be so stupid/petty/childish for nothing..

Well done for sticking it to the man. I imagine the checkout staff who have absolutely no control over the company policy really appreciated your stance.

They probably had the control to just give me a plastic bag. I’m sure they aren’t audited. See if you’d thought for a bit you might have come up with that too. Unless you happen to work on the checkout in B&Q. Do you?

Agreed. If you’re going to discourage something do it properly.

I’m taking a guess that it’s because not seeing the damage you’re doing to the environment when it gets binned later (assuming you don’t recycle it, which in fairness you could) is stupidity, and seeing it and not realising you could either re-use a bag or carry it to the car in a trolley is childish ignorance of the consequences of your actions?

(Incidentally I sometimes get plastic bags as I always forget my re-usable bags so I’m guilty too, but more often than not I’ll find a way to clutch everything without a bag if physically possible)

Oooh good! Are we doing guessing now? Right I’m taking a guess thatbyou are killing dogs by slitting their throats, then leabing them lying in the street. Now, that’s just cruel and dangerous. You must be an idiot to do something so irresponsible.

Which bag?

I didn’t want all the stuff being spread out all over the car, and i wanted some safeguard in case it spilled. I know i couldnhave spent my time clearing it up. But taht was vaulable time which would have detracted from my voulnetter work for the rainforest alliance or something.
I’m really surprised how you take a few guesses, make a few assumptions and criticise on that basis. That’s stoopid

You are an idiot.

My choices and the right to make them are also valuable to me.

You’re a moron.

CM – so you need to me to explain to you why its childish and stupid?

i think you’ve just answered the question with your last two responses..

you can drive, so that makes you older than 17..strange as you come across as less intelligent than a 2 yr old (and that may well be an insult to all two year olds..).

grow up.

i think you’ve just answered the question with your last two responses..

I responded in kind. I struggle to see how my last two responses have any bearing on my actions at B&Q.

So, yes please explain to me how it was childish and stupid, if you can.

You grow up

also please explain how comparing some one unfavourably to someone else might be an insult to that someone else?

If I said you were uglier than cynic-al or Brad Pitt, i would think that was an insult to either of them. Nor if i said you were less intelligent than Ian Castro or Edward De Bono, i would expect them to be insulted. On that basis, the most intelligent people would constantly be insulted as they are compared favourably to others. Can you explain that one to me? As if to a child.

It’s a silly idea until everyone does it. Then it becomes the norm, and will be better for it.

They’ve been trying it in Engerland for ages, but in a typically half-assed English way, so if you go to the supermarket you now have to ask for bags rather than help yourself to them. So it’s no greener in the long run, you just get a brief twinge of middle-class guilt to go with your shopping.

I’ve got ‘bags for life’, and they will last for life, because I can never remember to put them back in the car. If I didn’t have an option, I reckon I’d start remembering pretty quickly.

I seem to remember it working quite well (in terms of the dramatic reduction in bags being issued) in Ireland. Could have been an interesting thread if people had ignored CM…

The welsh thing is complete greenwash.
Ask yourself this. How much does a carrier bag weigh? Well my nice JS Orange ones come in at 5g on my scales. So I would need approx 200 to weigh a kilo.
Now we all know that carrier bags are made from the same stuff as petrol, oil…lovely sticky black stuff.

Now petrol has a specific gravity of approx .74 so a kilo of fuel will get you 1.35 litres.
Assuming you have an average car, lets say 40mpg, then that 1.35 litres is going to get you 12.1miles or 19.4km if you are under 30 years old.

So remember that that 1.35litres of fuel could have made 200 carrier bags. Thats 200 carrier bags for every 19.4km you drive.

To put it another way you car uses the equivalent of one carrierbag for every 100m you drive the **** thing!

Charging for carrier bags is greenwash at its worst. Until we stop sucking up huge amounts of stored dinosaur juice and wasting it on stuff then we really are wasting our time.

Give me free carrier bags, and let me drive a little less as a result

[and breath]