Editor:
I went to my local Walmart here in Burnaby recently and left without actually buying anything.
That’s because I was standing at the self-checkout and couldn’t find any plastic bags to fill with my groceries. I asked the clerk and she sheepishly said that the store no longer would provide these bags to customers.
Instead, they wanted me to buy some tiny cloth bags.
I felt kind of blindsided by this. You would think such a major policy change would have been announced months in advance with large signs and staff warning customers. But nope.
Just let your customers stand there all confused by a big change in policy. Nice work, Walmart.
It was the same at Safeway. I remember when they banned the plastic bags there was no obvious warnings for customers. I shopped there all the time and don’t recall anything warning me and then – bam – I showed up at the checkout and was told I needed to buy a reusable bag.
I think customers should be given a choice if they want to stick with plastic bags. I think there are bigger issues to worry about with the environment that this performative move.
The whole thing about how it was handled felt like a big middle finger to customers.
C. Choi, Burnaby
