Time to bring your own shopping bags. Thailand appears serious now.

[BigT73]

8 hours ago, johnoko said:

Most people in European countries do their shopping on foot or on bicycle 

I have only been on holidays to a few European countries and it was a absolute pleasure walking the countryside or the historic cities, shopping like this would be physical therapy.  Here on the otherhand crossing the road is traumatic let alone everthing else.

[scorecard]

6 hours ago, FolkGuitar said:

 

Tops at Kad Suan Kaew is now offering a 'Green Line' at the check-outs. Bring your own bags Only. Tends to be much shorter line than the others.

 

Stopped at S and P 2 hours back, put 2 bags of chicken pies (2 pies per bag) plus a slice of fruit cake on the tray.

 

At cashier my teen Thai granddaughter (native Thai speaker) tells the cashier 'don't put all of this in a carry bag'. The discussion went on forever.

 

End result each of the 3 original bags now placed into slightly larger plastic bags with handles, then all three carry bags put into 1 larger carry bag. The girl looks very pleased with herself.

 

Granddaughter is ready to tear her hair out, she looks at me grins and says in perfect english 'grandfather please don't hit me'.  Whole family giggles, also the S and P girl. 

 

 

[Daffy D]

Small sign at the Tesco check out about the plastic free days and something along the lines of bring your own "tote" on those days. I can't ever recall having seen the word "tote" used in any sentence, ever - cute 

 

[wgdanson]

6 hours ago, lopburi3 said:

Tesco has discontinued use of plastic bags - but others have not.

What....permanently or just on 4th's? According to Daffy post 33, it is only on plastic free days, whenever they may be.

 

Edited January 5, 2019 by wgdanson

[lopburi3]

45 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

What....permanently or just on 4th's? According to Daffy post 33, it is only on plastic free days, whenever they may be.

 

They had press release saying they were going paper bags at all stores - but have since retracted it to be only on plastic free days.  

[KhunProletariat]

Just been to the local 7/11 for my evening beers.

 

Same old same old. One Bag for my beers, another for my Mars bar.

 

Beggars belief.

 

KP.

[wgdanson]

6 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

They had press release saying they were going paper bags at all stores - but have since retracted it to be only on plastic free days.  

So your post no 16, 6 hours ago was fake news. Naughty. Can you not get done for that here in LOS?

[lopburi3]

3 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

So your post no 16, 6 hours ago was fake news. Naughty. Can you not get done for that here in LOS?

Obviously too ThaiVisa reading:

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Central was still using plastic bags when we went shopping there today.

 

[madusa]

"Time to bring your own shopping bags. Thailand appears serious now".

If only the women appear serious that would do Thailand a lot of good too.

[impulse]

I've been doing my own check-out at the local stores here in Texas, where I scan my own items and put them into as many plastic bags as I want.   Yet, there doesn't seem to be a plastic bag litter problem.  I rarely see an errant plastic bag on the beach or on the road here.

 

Because the bags aren't the problem.  It's the lack of infrastructure to handle solid waste, along with a lack of enforcement of the litter laws that create the problem in Thailand.   It was the same when I was a kid in the USA.  Then there were year long campaigns to shame litterers and hurt them where it counts with big fines and a high probability of getting caught.  That's what reduced the litter problem, even as the use of plastic skyrocketed.

 

I realize that plastics will always be a landfill problem.  But I don't recall ever "wasting" a disposable bag from BigC or TESCO in 7+ years of living in BKK.  Every single one of them was used to take my household trash down to the bins on the 1st floor of my apartment building.  And it was nice to not have to buy garbage bags, though I had to adapt to using the smaller TESCO bags instead of 10-20 gallon trash bags.  As far as 7/11, I learned early on that all I had to do is say, "no bag, please" and I rarely walked out of a 7/11 with a plastic bag.

 

On a related note, I'd be curious to see how much their revenue changes on the 4th each month when they go to "no plastic days".

Edited January 5, 2019 by impulse

[hugocnx]

9 hours ago, FolkGuitar said:

 

Tops at Kad Suan Kaew is now offering a 'Green Line' at the check-outs. Bring your own bags Only. Tends to be much shorter line than the others.

Yesterday at BigC; put my canvas bag on the counter and said 'toong' just to be sure that they would recognize it. While I was reaching for my wallet, the guy had already popped up a couple of plastic bags and was almost finished stuffing them up. Now I ask you, it's not my task to educate the Thai right? So let them have their 'evolution' period. Seems nowadays it's supposed to become a do or die situation. Never gonna happen in Thailand.

[impulse]

4 minutes ago, hugocnx said:

Yesterday at BigC; put my canvas bag on the counter and said 'toong' just to be sure that they would recognize it. While I was reaching for my wallet, the guy had already popped up a couple of plastic bags and was almost finished stuffing them up. Now I ask you, it's not my task to educate the Thai right? So let them have their 'evolution' period. Seems nowadays it's supposed to become a do or die situation. Never gonna happen in Thailand.

 

I don't know you, so I'm not passing judgment on your tones.  Your Thai may be perfect and your tones may be impeccable.   

 

But I can't count how many times a local friend or co-worker has turned to me and asked "was he speaking English?" right after a foreigner spoke to them in their very best Thai or Chinese.

 

[theguyfromanotherforum]

The stores that don't give me plastic bags will be avoided.

[Moonlover]

19 hours ago, impulse said:

The issue being, of course, that the vast majority of the Thai population doesn't have a car to haul their empty bags around...

Ok, so how does this 'vast majority of Thais' who cannot get empty bags to the store get full ones home again?

[rickudon]

I remember 20 years ago in the UK the issue of plastic bags was full of claims by some about how they wouldn't cope without free bags. It started with some supermarkets offering you  a penny off your shopping for each bag you brought, that incentive got a fair percentage doing it. Also 'bag for life' a stronger plastic bag you could replace for free if it wore out. And finally the 5p a bag charge. Bag use dropped considerably. Some bagmoaners claimed that they always forgot to take bags with them and were buying more expensive stronger bags which they still threw away, so they were wasting more plastic. Obviously there will always be some idiots like that, i STILL have a black woven bag i bought for 25p 15 years ago, must have done a few hundred shopping trips with that.

 

No one forces you to bring your own bags, but it takes economic sense as well as environmental sense to do so......

[impulse]

41 minutes ago, Moonlover said:

19 hours ago, impulse said:

The issue being, of course, that the vast majority of the Thai population doesn't have a car to haul their empty bags around...

Ok, so how does this 'vast majority of Thais' who cannot get empty bags to the store get full ones home again?

 

There's a difference between hauling something around in case you need it, and hauling it home when you did use it.

 

I actually shopped differently when I knew I would be hauling it all back home on a scooter taxi (5 minute ride) vs hauling it home in a taxi or my pickup (often 20+ minutes of traffic for the same distance). On a scooter, I limited myself to 3 plastic bags' worth.  In a taxi, I would go wild and walk out with 10 bags of groceries and cleaning supplies.

 

One of the things I liked about Thailand is the way people shopped for today's dinner, as opposed to shopping for a week's worth at a time.  And the way that shopping missions were more often spur of the moment than some planned excursion.  In which case, I often took scooter taxis and was limited to whatever I had in my pockets- which meant no big burlap shopping sacks, much less 3 or 4 of them.  Bottom line, carrying around a cloth sack (or 10 of them) requires advance planning.  I loved living in Thailand for the spontaneity.  And I think that any shop that neglects that custom by withholding plastic bags will see their bottom line suffer.   

 

Maybe it works in Europe, but they're on an entirely different level when it comes to the environment and the economics of protecting it.  Thailand needs to fix a glaring problem with the infrastructure for handling solid waste before they even think about banning plastic bags.  Maybe in a decade or 2...

 

[FolkGuitar]

2 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Central was still using plastic bags when we went shopping there today.

 

 

Would that be Central Festival Mall, Central Airport Plaza, or Central Kad Suan Kaew?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Just now, FolkGuitar said:

 

Would that be Central Festival Mall, Central Airport Plaza, or Central Kad Suan Kaew?

 

Central Chidlom BKK.

 

[scorecard]

3 hours ago, impulse said:

I've been doing my own check-out at the local stores here in Texas, where I scan my own items and put them into as many plastic bags as I want.   Yet, there doesn't seem to be a plastic bag litter problem.  I rarely see an errant plastic bag on the beach or on the road here.

 

Because the bags aren't the problem.  It's the lack of infrastructure to handle solid waste, along with a lack of enforcement of the litter laws that create the problem in Thailand.   It was the same when I was a kid in the USA.  Then there were year long campaigns to shame litterers and hurt them where it counts with big fines and a high probability of getting caught.  That's what reduced the litter problem, even as the use of plastic skyrocketed.

 

I realize that plastics will always be a landfill problem.  But I don't recall ever "wasting" a disposable bag from BigC or TESCO in 7+ years of living in BKK.  Every single one of them was used to take my household trash down to the bins on the 1st floor of my apartment building.  And it was nice to not have to buy garbage bags, though I had to adapt to using the smaller TESCO bags instead of 10-20 gallon trash bags.  As far as 7/11, I learned early on that all I had to do is say, "no bag, please" and I rarely walked out of a 7/11 with a plastic bag.

 

On a related note, I'd be curious to see how much their revenue changes on the 4th each month when they go to "no plastic days".

 Re 7/11, a store near me has a lot of western professors and european exchange students as customers.

 

Nowadays the staff never offer any of these folks a plastic bag, many of the customers hand over a cloth bag and the staff insert the purchases without hesitation. A few of these customers even hand over a mid size plastic box with lid to insert their toasted ham / cheese or whatever sandwich.

 

It can be interesting to watch the faces of some of the Thai customers who have never seen this before.

Edited January 5, 2019 by scorecard

[cheshiremusicman]

I went into a Tesco mini mart on the 4th to buy wine and whisky and there was a sign saying that they would not be providing plastic bags on the 4th of each month, but I still ended upcoming out with 4 plastic bags. What is the logic of only 'supposedly' operating this ban on one day a month?? 

[balo]

15 hours ago, theguyfromanotherforum said:

The stores that don't give me plastic bags will be avoided.

Then you need to stay away from any stores on the 4th every month. 

 Maybe better just stay in your room . 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

4 hours ago, cheshiremusicman said:

I went into a Tesco mini mart on the 4th to buy wine and whisky and there was a sign saying that they would not be providing plastic bags on the 4th of each month, but I still ended upcoming out with 4 plastic bags. What is the logic of only 'supposedly' operating this ban on one day a month?? 

 

Perhaps the notion of trying to get Thais to stick their toe into the proverbial no-plastic bags pool, before eventually getting them to immerse their entire body in the new no plastic bags approach.

 

Or, alternatively, perhaps they'll stick with the one day a month approach, and being good Thai bureaucrats, will consider their anti-plastic bags campaign done and a smashing success....

 

[scorecard]

39 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Perhaps the notion of trying to get Thais to stick their toe into the proverbial no-plastic bags pool, before eventually getting them to immerse their entire body in the new no plastic bags approach.

 

Or, alternatively, perhaps they'll stick with the one day a month approach, and being good Thai bureaucrats, will consider their anti-plastic bags campaign done and a smashing success....

 

Agree, this needs to be a step by step approach, with some goals and quick gains and no fall back.

 

A while back my Thai son's MIL and SIL were visiting and there was a no plastic bags item on the Thai TV news.

 

The two older ladies were annoyed and said there's no problem then both said it's not possible to live without plastic bags.  My son had been the news item a bit earlier and remembered some of the statistics about the very tiny total numbers of plastic bags used per day / year in some scandinavian countries.

 

Response: it's no possible.

 

But just recently the same 2 ladies were visiting and went with us to Lotus, the day they had no plastic but did have big paper bags and the meat products were wrapped in a kind of grease proof paper with sticky tape to hold the package closed.

 

The 2 older ladies were shocked - son then said 'can be the same in the wet market', they looked at each other and didn't say another word.

 

 

[puukao]

I sell plastic bags outside of all supermarkets!!!   5 baht for 3 bags!!!  I'm making soo much money!!!

 

Yes, I'm Thai so I don't need a work permit.  

 

Plus I sell bags that say "no more bags" and stickers and t-shirts and run a group against plastic bags.  feel free to donate.  10,000 baht minimum.  

 

get that money!!! 

[MikeN]

18 hours ago, rickudon said:

No one forces you to bring your own bags, but it takes economic sense as well as environmental sense to do so......

I just tell my girlfriend and other Thais that the woven bags are much more comfortable to carry when full than the plastic bags. They can understand that, but economic or environmental arguments go in one ear and out the other........

[bluesofa]

2 minutes ago, MikeN said:

I just tell my girlfriend and other Thais that the woven bags are much more comfortable to carry when full than the plastic bags. They can understand that, but economic or environmental arguments go in one ear and out the other........

At least if you told Van Gogh the same thing, it would go in one ear and stay there...