My First Recycling Letter: ACME

Dear Customer Service Rep:

I would like to comment on your policies regarding recycled bags,brown paper bags, and plastic bags. As part of my commitment to Recycle, Reduce, and Reuse, I carry recyclable bags with me for my groceries. As an alternative, I sometimes use brown paper bags.

At your store on City Ave, when I request, "paper only", I am frequently given paper bags with plastic carrying handles around them. This creates twice the waste - two bags.
The first time this happened, I was upset but moved on.

However, during my shopping experience recently, I was troubled by interactions with your cashier.
As he put my groceries in a plastic bag, I handed him my reusable bag and said, "I'd like to put as much as possible in this." He put one item in the bag, and continued to scan. I had to fill the cloth bag myself. When the cloth bag was full, I requested "PAPER ONLY." I specified paper only, and yet he put the items in paper bags with plastic bags around them. He put ONE remaining item, that would not fit, in a separate plastic bag. I took the items out, took the plastic bags off the paper bags, and returned them on the counter.


While I know Acme does support plastic bag recycling, making a difference in waste requires reducing the amount of plastic that enters the stream of waste. Also, I made a troubling observation. While Acme SELLS reusable bags, as do many other stores, they have done nothing to educate their cashiers on this practice.

I fear that selling reusable bags simply encourages more consumerism. Consider the impact of your company. Consider the impact if you were to train your cashiers in accommodating customers who choose to use multi-use bags or make choices to use less plastic. I would also suggest adding paper handles to your paper bags, so that these can be used without plastic bags around them. Finally, training employees about items you sell--such as re-usable bags--could also
encourage internal recycling and conversation among employees.


The inside of your new City Ave remodeling is beautiful, and I would like to continue shopping at your store. However, this will depend on my future experiences with your cashiers as I continue to use my cloth bags and request PAPER ONLY.

Sincerely,
(me)