The good old days - a short rant

We turn our attention, today, from impeachment trials, Harry and Floozie, and other matters of great import, to small everyday concerns, like carrying your groceries home from the store.

Back in the good old days, before the world was covered in plastic, the grocery store (later, supermarket) packed your groceries in sundries in paper bags, like those worn here by Mr and Mrs Walt. Yes, they packed the bags for you. And they were free, even when the heavy stuff needed to be double-bagged. The store would carry them to your car too! And the bags were useful for other things, like putting your garbage in, or hiding your face if you were a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs. All for free.

Then came plastic bags. Merchants liked them because they were cheaper, lighter, and easier to handle. Shoppers liked them because they had handles, and were less likely to tear under the weight of groceries or wet garbage. They were more reusable (as kitchen catchers, for instance) than the paper bags. And they were free too, in the good, not-so-old days.

A couple of years ago, however, the stores, under pressure from the eco-weenies and climate alarmists, started to charge for the plastic carrier bags. Instead, they wanted us to use bigger, heavier, reusable shopping bags aka tote bags, available for purchase for a mere 99 cents. This was ostensibly to protect the environment by reducing the incredible amount of plastic littering the countryside and going into landfills or (worse) the sea. Fair enough. We (Mrs Walt and YVT) use the nickel bags [referring only to the carrier bags! Ed.], most of the time, and don't object to paying 5 cents when we forget to take the tote bags to the store.

But the climate activists remain unsatisfied. They have now succeeded in pressuring at least one major supermarket chain to discontinue selling plastic bags. Instead, if you fail to bring your own bag, you will have to pay ten (10) cents (plus tax!) for a paper bag! And not the good ones, with handles, but the plain, old-fashioned paper bags shown in the picture.

Why have the supermarkets been so quick to co-operate in the scheme to shut down Big Oil? (You knew, eh, that the plastic bags are made from oil.) For the answer, follow the money! I've done some pricing, and find that the cost to the supermarkets for one paper bag is about 2 or 3 cents, depending on whether they want them to carry advertising or not. So that's a profit to the merchants of, say, 7 cents per paper bag, compared with a lousy 3 or 4 cents on a plastic bag. Geddit?

And never mind that paper bags are made from, errr, paper, which comes from trees. Paper manufacturers are doubtless happy to see the prospect of increased sales, after a steady decline in consumption of low-end paper products, such as newsprint and, yes, paper bags. Good news for all concerned, except of course for us consumers, who are being nickel and dimed to death, one bag at a time.