What is the reason Americans have difficulty with shopping carts and plastic bags at stores?

[LittleApple81]

In Europe people have solved two problems: cart: 1€ releases cart to use, refunded when cart returned. Plastic bags: cost between .10 - .20 € per bag, so you bring your own. You pack your own groceries. The lost jobs are compensated by better customer service inside the stores and fewer plastic bags hanging from trees and killing wildlife.

[morningglory]

1. Because we don't have any sense! nt

[JVS]

2. What part of Europe are you in? Customer service where I've shopped sucks rhino dick.

The cart thing works ok, but the clerks are fucking assholes about wanting you to pack shit as fast as they can scan it.

They use the savings to cut labor, Aldi style.

[LittleApple81]

6. Yeah, Aldi sucks for service. I am in Germany. I usually buy my groceries at TeGut which is a very

nice grocery store with plenty of bio offerings and nice service. They at least have cash registers with well organized spaces for customers to be able to pack their groceries without interrupting the flow at the register. I use baskets so it is a simple matter of putting the groceries in the baskets in the cart and then transferring them to the trunk of the car. I also carry a shopping bag in my purse that folds to a very small size so as not to occupy a lot of space.

[JVS]

14. I like the baskets as well. Tegut isn't my favorite, but can do in a pinch.

I like Edeka best, especially because there is an Aldi next door. So you can make a run through Aldi and get the bargains and then if there was something else on your list or you just want beer the Edeka is there. Edeka also has an in-store bakery with reasonably priced Semmel, etc. Kaufland is also good, but that's where I've had some fucked up service. The first time I went there, I kept my basket in the checkout line to grab the groceries after scanning and take them over to the shelf. It was a good system. The next time I tried it the cashier flipped out and made me walk back to the conveyor belt's starting point to deposit the basket and then I had to try to cram the stuff in my backpack. She sucked. Also, for some reason the Kaufland up here was not nearly as nice as the 2 level Kaufland down in Bavaria where you could find all kinds of household needs. The one up here didn't even have measuring cups for laundry soap. I've seen coffee filters for a long time, only at Edeka did I finally find the plastic cone for using them. Sainsbury and Tesco from the UK should colonize this area. They ran better stores generally.

[pampango]

3. Aldi (which I think is a German company) in Ohio does the same thing.

A quarter to get your cart then you get the money back when you return the cart. They also charge for bags, so most people bring their own.

[MichellesBFF]

12. Packing your own

I wish they would let you do that here, (central NY), I'd rather do it myself. (No meat with things that are going to be eaten uncooked, for example.)

[Le Taz Hot]

4. The places I shop

pay you 5-cents for each bag you bring in. I bought some cloth bags several years ago for 94-cents each. Not only do they hold twice as much and are sturdier, they've paid for themselves many times over.

[taterguy]

5. I think it has to do with availability of resources, at least as far as bags are concerned

In part of the US where land is cheap, no one really cares what gets thrown away, since filling landfills is cheaper than taking steps to keep landfills empty.

My Southeastern city provides 90 gallon trashcans and neighbors frequently overflow them.

In parts of the country where land is expensive people go to great lengths to minimize waste.

Trash cans in San Francisco are 10 gallons. They have very aggressive recycling programs and even provide curbside pick-up of compost.

[drm604]

7. I think there are a few places in the U.S. that give you a small discount for using your own bags.

The local Acme supermarket sells reusable cloth bags for a buck a piece. We bought some and use them in order to save plastic. I like them because they're also sturdier than the plastic bags. They don't give a discount for using them, but they do occasionally have contests where you have a chance to win something if you bring your own bags.

Personally I always return the carts either to the corrals (if they have them) or to the store, but a lot of people don't bother.

[LittleApple81]

9. Human nature reacts better to a charge for the bag than to an optional discount. At least that is

my experience.

[mdmc]

8. we will get there eventually

we are slow to the draw here in merika

[FormerDittoHead]

10. What "difficulty" do we have with shopping carts?

A local shop had those gizmos that took a quarter to release the cart. They stopped using them because the gizmos needed more repair than anything else on the cart and increased costs.

[LittleApple81]

11. Did they use European technology to make the gizmos? I am telling you, some of these German carts

are OLD and they still function. Some of them still say "1 Mark" in the slot... that is 8 years ago when the Mark was the currency here.

[AndyTiedye]

13. Most Grocery Stores in the Bay Area Give a Discount if You Bring Your Own Bags

[lame54]

15. Shop at Aldi...

they're cheaper and the quality of their food is great

plus the cart and bag thing

[screembloodymurder]

16. I have a problem with dirty bags on the counter where my food is packaged.

Call me Monk, but I like knowing that the bags are clean and that they've been stored in a clean environment. It's worth every nickel I'd save by bringing my own.

[LittleApple81]

17. You need to build some defenses! I grew up in Latin America around a lot of germs. No allergies,

no infections, no problems so far, and I am not a spring chicken.

My sister boiled everything that she offered her first child. He got so sick from a minor infection, that after that he was not so overprotected and her second child had a very clean but not hospital clean environment, with good results.

[taterguy]

18. Can we call you an idiot instead?

Generally, the only food you buy that comes in direct contact with a shopping bag is produce.

Produce should be thoroughly washed because it can have all sorts of contaminants in it before it ever gets to the grocery store.

In a way it's none of my business but in a way it is since those little plastic bags are a big waste of scarce resources.

[madeline_con]

21. The ladies at SavALot (and the one male cashier) all know

not to put any of my groceries in the baby seat when they fill the cart from the conveyer belt. It's crawling with ecoli, and I do NOT want it on my food. :puke:

[Berry Cool]

19. The new trend in shopping carts seems to be to outfit them with electronic devices

that keep them "corraled" within a certain radius of the store by auto-locking the wheels when they pass the "'invisible perimeter" past which they cannot travel. It's fine with me, so long as I know that's what I'm working with. Saves a lot of cart-moving work for the employees, saves the stores money on replacing lost carts, discourages people from stealing and abandoning carts and leaving them around cluttering up the neighborhood, and also eliminates the need for those ugly cement posts right around the outside of the store that scream "This is an inner-city neighborhood where people steal shopping carts unless we pen them in."

At the Save A Lot stores, you also bag your own groceries (paper, plastic or reusable bag). I actually prefer packing my own because it annoys me to no end the way baggers bag stuff under the assumption that everyone is driving the stuff home in a motor vehicle and thus can accommodate an infinite number of bags. It's almost as if they pride themselves on packing the minimum number of items into the maximum number of bags. And they never bag cat litter at all--they figure you'll just pick it up by the handle and put it in your car. Even if you don't have one.

On a bike, I have found using the self-checkout to be the best option, because then I can pack the way I know I will best be able to carry the stuff, and for maximum bag use. Sometimes I get help from a bagger on efficiently packing my little-old-lady wire cart, too. You'd be amazed how much you can get into one once you ditch any bag that makes it harder to find room for it all and keep only the ones you need to prevent little stuff from slipping through the holes.

[madeline_con]

20. SaveALot does that... and Aldi just came to town

I keep a bag of bags from other stores in the trunk for grocery shopping (why spend .10 on something you have too many of?) and would rather bag my own, anyway.

The only problem with Aldi is their meat looks suspiciously as disgusting as what's sold at WalMart. So, I shop SavALot mostly.