Crazy Bag Lady

I am a plastic bag hater. I do not need to list the reasons why – unless you have been living in an underground bunker since the nineties, you will have read, seen, heard the undeniable facts proving that our love of plastic is irrevocably harming the planet. When it is so easy to take your own, far sturdier, less painful to hold when heavy, more stylish, re-usable bags to the shops I really don’t understand why people walk out with a trolley-full of ugly, animal-killing plastic ones. In Thailand, you were looked at weirdly by everyone – shop-assistants and customers alike – for bringing your own bags (read my blog ‘Plastic Fantastic’, Jan 14th 2010, for more on that). In a country where many people struggle to make ends meet, rejecting something for which you don’t have to pay a single baht is unthinkable. Why would you not stock up on shiny, new and completely free plastic bags, and as many as the cashier is willing to dish out at that?


Australians are far more environmentally aware (and wealthy) than the Thais and their shops welcome reusable bags. Shop assistants here don’t look at you as if you have just admitted to a penchant for eating pet cats if you do forget to bring your own bags (like many in the UK do), but they often check if you need a bag rather than just assuming that you do and they are happy to take your bags to pack your shopping into. Like Thailand, the supermarket assistants in Australia pack your shopping for you, which does sometimes cause eyes to be raised when I hand over my odd assortment of fabric bags. Back in the UK it didn’t matter what weird and wonderful bags I produced at the till as you are expected to pack your own bags – I knew which items fitted best into which bags and I had a system. Here, when I pull out my bags received free in magazines, given to me at organic fairs and bought at other supermarkets, I can see the till person fight not to roll their eyes and sigh. At that moment they know that I have just made their job that little bit harder. My bags of different shapes, sizes and materials don’t all fit perfectly onto their bag-holders and I feel a twinge of guilt as I look round at other tills where customers have handed over their spacious supermarket-own reusable bags that are designed specifically to fit onto the hooks at the till and hold dozens of items. The cashier yesterday lined my bags all up on the counter and gave much thought to which items should go into which bags. I was there for quite a while and more than one person in the queue behind me gave up and joined another, where people were using the right bags.

It may have taken longer but at least I returned home bearing not a single plastic bag. And my bags are far more original than the supermarket own ones. They are bright, colourful, madly patterned and doing their bit to save the planet. I may look like a crazy bag lady but I don’t care.