SUPERMARKETS AND PLASTIC BAGS. @Shiv Sena, @Sri Ram Sene – Forget Valentine’s Day, do something about THIS romance.

(This is the second post I wrote for the Green Idol Campaign at http://www.greenidol.in/)

SUPERMARKETS AND PLASTIC BAGS. @Shiv Sena, @Sri Ram Sene - Forget about Valentine's Day, do something about THIS romance.

Blog Category: People's Voices

The mushrooming of supermarkets that replace the local corner store has, no doubt made life a lot more convenient, and more consumerised - what they have also done, though, is to ensure our place among one of the largest consumers of cheap-grade plastic - in terms of Kate-Moss- thin plastic covers. Not only is this avoidable, but after talking to several store managers repeatedly, the reasons cited for persisting with the stupid policies, confound logic and are extremely infuriating. I'll enumerate some of these policies implemented by various chains - Reliance Fresh, DMart, FabMall, Big Bazaar, and many others who desperately need to be locked in a Nazi era Gas chamber with burning plastic covers, in order to make them realize what they're doing to the planet. Let me pen down the various ‘rules’ in force at various places. If only the police and the government were as strict as supermarket staff in ensuring that constitutional laws were upheld by each and every citizen of this country.

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1) Plastic Bags for each and every kind of produce: You know what I’m YELLING about – those annoying air-sickness bag sized, thin, transparent covers that the produce section INSIST you use to bag every single kind of greens/fruit/vegetable you buy – SEPARATELY! Even if you could fit all the hot air that Pakistan has been blowing since 1947 into the bag along with the apples you just bought, you will not be allowed to put some oranges into the same bag. No sir – it’s considered as forbidden as decorum in the Lok Sabha (or more recently – the J&K Assembly). How tough is it to just print out all those small barcode tags on a sheet of paper*(or stick them all on one cover for that matter), and have it all scanned at one shot later? It saves the annoying number of bags that you have to carry, remove cellotape from, only to discover that they’re useless except to line your dustbin with (and that’s if you’re the conscious type, most people would do to it what they’d want to do to the writers of “Sach Ka Saamna” – rip and throw.)

*The MOST infuriating thing was that a FabMall outlet in Mysore had figured this out themselves, and were doing it – until MANAGERIAL INTERVENTION stopped them.

2) Not allowed to take own bags/ plastic covers into the store: Primary fear – shoplifting. Proprietors lose sleep over the prospect of customers walking in with their own bags, stocking them and leaving without paying for any of the items – immunizing themselves under the claim that it was stuff that they had with them when they came into the store. This is the true face of customer relations and the mistrust that exists even in everyday life. This lacuna of trust is not what led India to where she is today. Apart from the moral argument, no one is advocating that security staff be employed to monitor what each customer brings in. How tough is it to think rationally in such cases? Allow customers to bring their own bags provided they’re empty. Atleast this enables environmentally conscious ones like me to do their bit better. As it is, the people bagging all your purchased items at the checkout counter write down how many bags you’ve got. All security has to do, in addition to a ceremonial stamp on the bill, is to just check that you have as many bags on you as is written in the bill! This is DONE ANYWAY – at Big Bazaar atleast!!!!! But no, they HAVE to be special in that they close shut your bags with those plastic seals, so you won’t be able to easily open them once they’re closed. But then again – NO ONE CHECKS TO FIND OUT IF THE SEALS ARE STILL INTACT! The next time I go, I’m going to grab a couple of those strips and carry a scissor in my pocket – just to flash at the security after checkout, and smirk until I look like ‘The Joker’.

MOST IRRITATINGLY – ALL THESE PLACES HAVE CCTV, in addition to the ‘measures’ taken above!! In a country that most fervently believes in “karma” and the fact that what goes around, comes around. Swallow that!!

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Now it’s not all bad. Most places do stupid things. Some atone to a certain degree of their sins – just like all good students who don’t do the allotted work, stay up the night before, and pray before exams. The FabMall outlet I mentioned shows that people don’t find this wasteful plastic romance convenient, and want to change. DMart allows people to drop off their used plastic bags, claiming that it will recycle the plastic. Now how far that is true, I do not know, but it is encouraging to note that the paan-stained-teeth flashing store manager is not the ultimate deciding authority when it comes to recognizing the sensitivities of the customer demograph. Or more simply – People care about the environmental impact that they cause, and a commercial operator has woken up and smelt the coffee - enough to do something about it; even if it’s only a put-on show.

Now we all know that any good argument in India is deemed incomplete without some adulation of ‘how the west does it’. (Sarcasm and pain should have been implicit there) LAMENTABLY, I shall add to this. In the UK, frequent shoppers who use loyalty cards when they shop at supermarkets get additional ‘Green Points’ when they use their own bags. (Yes – the west DOES allow people to carry their own bags into stores.) Now, if there’s a general disinterest in implementing this, here’s another good solution. Whatever happened to the proposal to CHARGE customers for plastic carry bags? You’d even widen the profit margin, and hence the store owner’s and thus his doctors’ waistline ever so slightly. These are not solutions, but analogous to courtesy visits by friends to the hospital. Well, atleast they raise awareness.

Even if 10 people read this epic (in terms of length of a blog post) and do something about it – reduce their plastic consumption, speak up & speak out, or just share it, it would have served its purpose. Personally, I’m still going to keep debating with store managers, and drawing stares when I flout the above mentioned irrational policies. Feel free to join.

-- first submitted on Fri, 31/07/2009 - 04:42 IST.