I brought a bunch of reusable bags with me on my $100 shopping trip to Fairway Market in Paramus yesterday. But the cashier didn't give me credit for the bags. Why isn't New York-based Fairway Market giving its North Jersey shoppers an incentive to reduce their use of plastic bags? (See last post, "Trying to warm up to Fairway Market in Paramus.")
I'm convinced the plastic bag will be the last thing left after life ends, with tens of thousands of them blowing around as evidence of our rampant consumerism. Reusable shopping bags are larger and hold more. There are quilted ones for cold items, too. They just make so much sense, as long as you remember to take them into the supermarket, which is not as easy as it sounds.
ShopRite gives customers 5 cents back, not 15 cents, as I write peviously, for each reusable bag. Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Stop and Shop and other markets do likewise, though the amount varies.
And high and mighty Fairway? Here's another example of why many of us are slowly souring on the food-shopping experience at its new store in Paramus.
-- VICTOR E. SASSON
