Re: Plastic garbage in, garbage out (Opinion, oakbaynews.com)
Shortly after Thrifty’s began offering fabric bags, it became pretty obvious to anyone paying attention, that the greening was a very clever scam (marketing strategy, if you prefer).
Perhaps Tom Fletcher can also provide us with some reliable data on those bags? For example, they are made in China – undoubtedly at pennies per bag. Of course, that is their right, ‘function of the marketplace’, and all that. If we are actually concerned with the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants, perhaps we should push for more information – who, exactly, is making these bags? I would like to be assured that this is not the work of children in sweatshops, or prisoners in their gulag.
Further, should we be interested in the carbon footprint of the manufacture – or simply remain grateful that they are ‘only’ adding to the Chinese pollution fiasco?
Finally, as if to cap it off, in a bid to help us transition into the Brave New World of Victoria’s upcoming ban on plastic bags, Save on have generously offered to sell us packages of five fabric bags for just $5. So much more efficient than picking them up one at a time at $1 each. Anyway, pretty much however many we toss into the car for the next shopping venture, they only add to the collection (my family has, over the few years since this madness was foisted upon us, gathered no less than 30 of the things) we are still not conditioned to actually remember to bring them back to the store.
Oh, and on the subject of futility: note to council and the police – the push to teach drivers to actually stop at Stop signs didn’t work: most still don’t bother, any more than they bother with speed limits.
Nice try, though.
Alec Allison
Oak Bay