Carry bag is a require
instrument to carry items from shop to home. For every shopper carry bag is a
necessity. Shoppes used to take them as granted and shopkeepers were more than
happy to provide such begs as convenience and help to promote their business.
Most of the big shops provided bags which have their shop name and serve as
visiting card. It was a win –win situation for both parties. But now this
situation has been changed as old saying there is no free lunch so no free
shopping bags any more. Long time ago before the popularity of the
polybags /convenient bags, even before the start of the big Mall era shoppers
used to carry their own bags to buy the groceries from the neighbors’
shopkeeper. With the help of the multinational companies and effective
advertisement this situation has been changed and now all big malls are selling
shopping bags as side product. Let’s see how this all came in to picture.
EVOLUTION
PERIOD (BEFORE 2000)
I belong to a
middleclass family and I have spent my childhood from small to large scale city
thanks to my father’s frequent transferable job. During my child hood I have
observerd that every place had very similar infrastructure. We had multiple small
shops for grocery, cloths and other requirements and one or two one stop big
shops. We used to do most of the shopping from the small shops and went to big
shops only for some big occasions. Though big shops had cheaper options but
going there for everyday stuffs wasn’t feasible.
We
always carried multiple cloth bags to shop and even we used to carry our
utensils to get liquid items e.g oil, Ghee, milk etc. As open items were
cheaper then buying packed items and we could see what quality we were getting.
Slowly
big shops introduced concept of the thin polybags so you don’t need to carry
multiple begs they can stuffs small items in to thin polybags and you just need
to stuffs them in to your carry begs. This concept quickly adopted by the small
shopkeepers as well. As this facility was free (no visible extra charge)
shoppers stop carrying multiple bags and utensils as getting liquid items in
the polybags was very convenient. I believe extra cost of the polybags somehow
shifted to the shoppers in other forms e.g. with weight of the items.
END OF BYOB
On start of the 21st century when
world was facing great recession .Various countries open there gate for
multinational companies and globalization of consumers become a new trend.
Developing countries like India got big buildings and big malls in its big
cities. These malls restricted carrying your own bags inside the mall. If you bring your
own bag (BYOB) you have to submit it and keep the token. They provide
you there on shopping bags. Once you finish your shopping they stuff your items
into big polybags so you don’t have to stuffs them into your carry beg.
Again it was a great convenience and off course cost was invisible to the
consumer. Cost of these begs were absorbed by the malls as this practice was a
win-win situation for them.
- These big
polybags works as instrument of the malls advertisement. More people will carry
their bags more advertisement for the malls
- It helps
curving the theft of the items from the mall.
- Consumer don’t
have to plan their shopping then can enter any time without worry about how
they will carry the items
These
bags were so lucrative many people started frequent visits to these mall and
started more and more shopping from there rather than small neighbor shop.
Young generation stop carrying any carry bag with them. Even if some would
carry their own bag they would be tagged as old generation.
WHY SELLING OF
SHOPPING BAGS STARTED
As use of polybags
increased World health organizations & researcher started realizing the
side effect of this phenomenon. They have noticed following prominent
issues
- These beg were
not recyclable.
- Polybags are
hazardous for animal.
- Burning them
harms environment and ozone layer.
There
were many protests to ban use of the polybags. Many movements started with no
polybags sign. Group has been formed activist started promoting to say no to
polybags and not to shop from the shops those provide polybags.
But
people already became habitual of not bringing their own bags and it wasn’t
feasible for shopkeeper to provide other type of carry beg. It was a catch 22
situation and solution came as the recyclable bags.
Due
the government pressures big shops and malls started providing recyclable bag
to consumer but soon realized that cost of these bags is much higher and due to
inflation they have to pass this cost to the consumer.
And a new business of
selling of carry bags has been started.
WHY WE BUY
CARRY BAGS
Now a days most of the
shops & malls charges extra for carry bag from 2 rs to 50 rs
depends on the shop. It is not guaranteed if these bags are rally
recyclable. We are end paying this extra money every time I wonder why ?
- They charge
- We don’t carry
our own bag
- We do impulse
shopping
The
real answer is our shopping habit. We entered into shop to check out some
stuffs and end up buying some other items. We don’t plan our shopping so we
don’t carry bags. We are spoiled buy choices we spend hours in the mall to get
right cloth/shoes/grocery for us and when cashier ask extra for carry bag we
couldn’t say no as we wouldn’t have any other option by that time. We don’t do
accounting how much money we are spending on buying these bags which we through
away. Ask yourself when you have carried same bag on your next shopping?
WHAT GOES
COMES BACK
I had multiple discussions
with intellectual people and some of them give a very strong reason on extra
charge of taking carry bag by the shops. As carry bags are hazardous to
environment extra charge would reduce the usage of these bags and there is some
rule and regulations enforce by the government to reduce the countries carbon
footprints. And it’s business so shops should earn the profit.
I
wonder what government was doing when multinational companies were spoiling the
Indian middle class with free carry bag. Wasn’t they were creating new market
to sell the unrequired bag. If government and malls are really worried about
the environment they should provide extra discount of not taking the bag from
the mall instead of charging extra or should reward in some other manner.
Shops and mall should
increase the awareness of benefit of carrying your own bag. In current scenario
we don’t see any efforts by the shops or the government.
As
responsible citizen we should bring back the BYOB (bring your own bag) trend
and say no to malls carry bag and strong no to buy them and save money &
save environment else we will be spending at least 2% of our shopping money in
these extra bags. In my opinion It will take one complete generation to change
its habit.
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