Plastic bags and self scanning at Winn Dixie

Winn Dixie it the name of the local supermarket, here in Miami Lakes. Supermarkets stay open during the evening, so last night we went to restock our grocery supplies. When we got to the checkout, there was no one at the four self-scan stations, so we decided to have a go. I have actually used the self-scan at our local ASDA store in Walsall, but it was a new experience for Andy. All went well until he tried to remove the first bag of scanned goods. An assistant hovering nearby quickly told him not to remove the bag until the machine told him to, so we waited and placed more items into the bag. This continued until the bag was overflowing and the machine had still not 'released it'. The assistant then proceeded to place some of the goods from the top of the over-flowing bag into the trolley, which still had goods waiting to be scanned inside it. Some confusion ensued, until we finally managed to pay and escape, convinced that our transactions must surely be wrong.

We couldn't decide whether the over-flowing bag incident was part of a policy for more economy with plastic bags, which would be applaudable, or that we had somehow upset the machine! Having shopped in several countries recently I notice that each one has different 'rules' for their plastic bags. In South Africa you have to pay for your bags, so most people remember to reuse them; in Zambia the plastic bags are free but really small, so you can only get a couple of items into them; in Mozambique, the bags were normal size and freely available; in England Tesco's home shopping, which Andy's mum uses, collects all the bags for recycling with the next delivery.

When we first went to Brazil, I noticed how extravagant they were with plastic bags, putting one inside another to make it stronger and only putting a few items into them. Now that there is an emphasis on recycling in the UK, it will be interesting to see if supermarkets are encouraging people to reuse them and have places for recycling the millions of bags which must be issued everyday.