Apr 28, 2012 -- 7:57PM, solfeggio wrote:

The idea of reuseable grocery bags is a good one.  Our supermarkets do not automatically give out a plastic bag at check-out now.  They ask if you want one, but many people say 'no,' because we all have the green bags now. 

This harks back to another time, when I was a kid, and when people always took their own bags to the shops. 

Also, I remember the days when people got their milk in reusable bottles.  The milkman delivered the milk, and when people had drunk it, they just put the bottles back out to be collected.

A lot of products that we buy that come in various sorts of plastic containers could just as easily be dispensed at the store into a bottle somebody would bring from home.  For instance, you would bring your plastic bottle that you owned to the store, and you'd go to the syrup dispenser, put your bottle under the spigot, and let the syrup go into your bottle.

You'd turn off the tap, cap your bottle, and take it to the check-out.

Also, people could bring their own containers to buy all sorts of things from apples to nuts.  You'd scoop them out of bins, and they could be weighed at the check-out.

There must be any number of ways in which we could all generate less garbage.

Whay you describe is what we have in Co-Ops (Co Operatives) here. Almost everything comes in bulk, people provide their own containers. Obviously not everything is loose, but a good deal of it. And the same place sells almost exclusively organic, with out dyes or added chemicals.

Unfortunately they are more expensive as well. But still a great concept. Be nice if it were more wide spread.