Paper or plastic? How about neither?

I’m not sure what the official flower of Los Angeles is.  But sometimes, when driving down Alvarado or Beverly, I’m convinced that the plastic bag is LA’s official symbol.  You see them floating everywhere, fluttering across the street, hanging in trees, flying under cars.  And a recent incident my better half experienced underscored how pernicious these little buggers are!

  My partner, Ara, spent his Sunday morning buying the groceries we needed for a going away party we hosted later that day.  He realized on his way home that he needed one more item—a pineapple—so he hopped into the Silver Lake Ralph’s to it pick up.  Then the trouble began.

As Ara was taking out the cash to pay for the pineapple, the clerk automatically placed the pineapple in a plastic bag. Ara said, “I don’t need a bag,” at which point the clerk took the pineapple out of the bag and said, “OK, I’ll just throw the bag in the ocean.  Ara was not amused. 

Then a bagger came and, seeing the unbagged pineapple, asked Ara the standard “paper or plastic” question and Ara requested “neither.”  The bagger smirked, looked at the clerk and chuckled, “What’s the worse that can happen?”  The clerk joked, “Yeah, that might kill a dolphin.”

Yes, it’s amazing that any store employee would mock a customer, especially in this economy where customers are becoming an endangered species.  Never mind that at each aisle Ralph’s had displayed reusable canvas bags for sale.  Unfortunately, the workers were pitifully ignorant and probably just plain stupid (but protected by a union, I’m sure!).

At a higher level, however, it reinforced the reasons for which I rarely enter a “mainstream” supermarket.  I’d rather go to a Trader Joe’s or when I’m feeling affluent, a Whole Foods, where workers generally seem happy with their jobs and know something about their products (that includes Wegman’s which isn’t out west yet).  I’d rather not deal with the surly employees at a Kroger- or Safeway-owned store.  Trying to be personal by reading my name off of a receipt just doesn’t do it for me.

  Ara’s experience is indicative of what is going on with our supermarkets and food supply nation—even world—wide.  Safeway, Kroger, and their competitors are happy to stock products that lead to obesity and other health problems, in addition to wares that are over-packaged and in the end, not sustainable.  Instead of highlighting local and organic foods, these supermarket chains greenwash us by displaying a few token reusable bags and organic products.  However, these companies need to start by educating their employees and engaging them; instead you have customer experiences similar to Ara’s.