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These are some images of German shopping bags pulled from Google images\u2013<\/p>\n
The first of these was very common, and perfectly suited to the traditional German shopping practice of many small trips rather than one large weekly trip. \u00a0The second is one that was fairly practical, since it clips to the cart so you don\u2019t really need to pack your groceries; they just land in there (again, assuming you don\u2019t have that many). \u00a0The third is rather similar to a scrunchable\/foldable shopping bag that I picked up at Aldi yesterday; the applique on the bottom right of the bag has a drawstring so that the entire bag compresses into a small ball. \u00a0It seems fairly clever but I\u2019m not sure how durable it\u2019ll be, or how easy it\u2019d actually be to pack groceries in and carry them home. \u00a0The last of these was an alternate solution, a collapsible crate that fit inside the shopping cart \u2014 the only disadvantage is that it\u2019s pretty heavy once it\u2019s filled with groceries.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s the reusable shopping bag that our local grocery store sells:<\/p>\n
![\"Meijer](\"https:\/\/www.meijer.com\/assets\/product_images\/styles\/xlarge\/1001029_NWMEIJ03_A_400.jpg\")
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Which is OK but not great. \u00a0The ones I bought when they first introduced them were pretty good, sturdy with a heavy plastic base inside so that the bag would stand and it was easy to pack \u00a0The more recent ones had a flimsier plastic base and the fabric is already starting to tear. <\/p>\n
Of course, in Germany, the entire shopping experience is different than in the U.S. \u00a0There is no such thing as the cashier bagging your groceries, let alone a separate bagger. \u00a0 The cashier scans your groceries, and then you\u2019re on your own. \u00a0Sometimes I frantically tried to get the groceries in bags while the cashier scanned them, only to give up and dump the rest into the cart when she started scanning the next order. \u00a0Other times I ended up just dumping everything in the cart, and bagging everything as I transferred them into the car. \u00a0In any case, for my first year there, it was more complicated by having a two-year-old in the cart. \u00a0Aldi was better than most stores, in that there was a counter for packing groceries, which the other stores didn\u2019t provide. \u00a0Walmart (which has since given up on the German market, but that\u2019s another story) also provided a packing counter, and American-style plastic bags to boot. \u00a0And, thinking back, I found that I really couldn\u2019t remember how my fellow shoppers managed \u2014 whether they just had fewer groceries than I did, or more skill at packing them, or just didn\u2019t care because they were used to it. \u00a0Maybe I was too frantic about what I was doing to notice.<\/p>\n
One consequence of the lack of plastic bags is that you actually needed to buy plastic bags when, in the U.S., you\u2019d just reuse the grocery bags \u2014 as trash bags, for cleaning the cat litter, etc. \u00a0Dog poop wasn\u2019t as much of an issue because Germans weren\u2019t very good at picking up after their dogs anyway.<\/p>\n
(I would always say that Germany was great during the summer, when the opportunities to take the streetcar into the city, or bike to the beergarden, or take a trip out into the countryside or to a castle or the mountains outweighed the inconveniences of daily life. \u00a0But in the winter, when there weren\u2019t many such fun activities, and when loading unbagged groceries into the car was all the more unpleasant, and when carrying the groceries through the parking garage, up the stairs, across the walkway and into the house, in the cold was all the more a hassle \u2014 not so great.)<\/p>\n
When we returned to the U.S. and Meijers brought out their reusable bags, I figured I\u2019d be environmentally friendly and use these. \u00a0What I discovered: \u00a0first of all, I tended to end up with the bags buried at the bottom of the shopping cart, and I wouldn\u2019t manage to pull them out (or even remember them) until the cashier was halfway through bagging my order; and, second of all, it took the cashier a lot more time to bag the groceries into these bags than into regular plastic grocery bags. \u00a0I always felt like I was holding up the people behind me. \u00a0Plus, I forgot them at home more often than not. \u00a0(If you forget your bags and you\u2019re at Aldi, you end up taking some of the boxes that are on the shelves \u2014 they leave the products in the boxes at Aldi, to save labor \u2014 and trying to fit your groceries in them, and then trying to fit the boxes into the recycling bin afterwards.)<\/p>\n
So I\u2019m thinking of this in the context of the plastic grocery bag ban under discussion in Chicago, which I would suspect will end up being approved, since that\u2019s the way things work in Chicago. \u00a0The latest is that plastic bags will be banned for chain stores (3 or more stores) and franchise retailers with stores greater than 10,000 square feet in August 2015, and smaller stores a year later, with mom-and-pop retailers and any sort of restaurant (e.g., for carry-out food) exempt entirely; it\u2019s passed a committee and will go before the whole Council next week. \u00a0(See \u201cCity Council Panel Passes Plastic Bag Ban<\/a>\u201d among other sources.)<\/p>\n Is it the end of the world? \u00a0There are ways to adapt, and I\u2019d sure rather use reusable bags than paper bags, which are awkward to carry, and I wouldn\u2019t entirely trust them anyway. \u00a0But, in a perfect world, in which the City Council was a genuine deliberative body, I\u2019d rather they not base their decision on what seems most \u201cenviornmentally correct\u201d but ask themselves these questions:<\/p>\n Who will a ban harm? \u00a0Well, first of all, retailers near the city limits, to the extent that this inconvenience pushes shoppers for whom a city grocery store and a nearby suburban one are otherwise equal in distance, price, and quality, to choose the suburban one. \u00a0Secondly, all shoppers, to the extent that prices go up as retailers need to hire more staff due to the fact that it takes longer to bag groceries into a shopper\u2019s reusable bags, than plastic bags, and, to a lesser extent, due the increase in cost for paper vs. plastic bags. \u00a0Third, shoppers for whom the free plastic bags eliminate the need to buy bags for doggie doo-doo or other uses. <\/p>\n Certainly, car-using shoppers have to get into the habit of keeping bags in the car. \u00a0And vacationers in self-catering apartment-type units are inconvenienced because one can\u2019t reasonably bring grocery bags along on the airplane. \u00a0What about shoppers who rely on mass transit, or their own two feet to get to the store, for whom carrying groceries in handled bags is a lot easier than paper bags? \u00a0Actually, I don\u2019t understand why some kind of shopping cart (see my post<\/a> from September) isn\u2019t more prevalent, because even carrying plastic bags isn\u2019t a good solution anyway.<\/p>\n\n
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