fedward, tumbling

How [not] to [not] consume

I came across two contradictory articles today, and I like to imagine the sorts of people described as involved in a boxing match:

IN THIS CORNAH!

Normally no penny-pincher, she now maps her day’s travels to avoid having to shop in the District; she has abandoned her beloved neighborhood grocery store, Harris Teeter on Capitol Hill, in favor of stores near her Virginia office — even though she pays an extra 2.5 percent food tax there. And twice she has unwisely carried an armload of bagless food out of D.C. restaurants, with calamitous results.

AND THE CHALLENGAH!

HOW IT WORKS

1. FILL YOUR CONTAINER
2. WE WEIGH
3. YOU PAY

RE-USE YOUR OWN CONTAINER & SAVE 50p

The latter approach seems a little impractical: do they charge you for the weight of your own jar; do they dump everything out, weight it, then pour it back in; or do they know the tare for every possible container?

But between the two extremes I guess I’m already closer to the latter than the former, at least in spirit.  We’ve had our original reusable bags for so long I’m not even sure when we got them, and we’ve added a few more here and there through giveaways, so we’re already set on that front.  The ones we paid for have more than paid for themselves in convenience, not to mention the bag tax, so I have no complaints.

We live across the street from our grocery store so forgotten bags just mean running back home for a minute, which we’ve done before and will probably have to do again.  We’re also just a few blocks from the organic market, so we’re able to buy in bulk without too much trouble, although our organic market isn’t yet to the point of encouraging the reuse of containers (the bulk section has rolls of plastic bags).

We still buy a lot of packaged goods but our proximity to both stores has definitely changed our shopping habits in the few months we’ve lived here - and we weren’t even that far from a grocery store before we moved. Going out of your way to avoid a bag tax is irrational, but the bring-your-own-container approach is somewhat impractical. At least for now. Who’s to say what the future will bring?