Most Americans can open up that one weird cabinet in their kitchen and find about a thousand plastic shopping bags from their various trips to the store over the years. It’s quite a frustrating collection that we all seem to conjure up at one point or another. And for most of us, it seems that they are easily forgotten until they begin overflowing out of the cabinetry and cluttering up the kitchen space.
What’s even worse is having to come home with way more plastic bags than you asked for.
In one recent Reddit post, a Walmart shopper called out the Walmart pickup order service after receiving every item that they ordered on their shopping list in separate plastic bags.
The original post can be found on the r/extremelyinfuriating subreddit, where the poster talked about the shock when they opened up their Walmart order.
“What a waste!” says the original post.
Of course, the shock didn’t stop there, and other Redditors were quick to share the photo elsewhere. Someone posted it in the r/anticonsumption forum, and people were equally disgusted with how blatantly wasteful Walmart was.
As we all know, plastic bags are not great for the environment whatsoever. Not only are they incredibly annoying to deal with in our kitchens, but they are also very difficult to recycle. In fact, the majority of recycling centers, such as the ones that pick up your large bins of cans on the curb each week, don’t take plastic bags to their centers.
The main issue is that they can easily jam up the machinery.
All of this boils down to the fact that most plastic bags are tossed in the trash. Unfortunately, even when they are properly disposed of, only around about 5% of them ever go through a recycling process.
Over the years, several experts have noted that the recycling of plastic is a “well-intentioned, yet failed concept.”
Luckily, there are many grocery store chains across the country that are accepting plastic bags when they are returned for reuse. You may be able to find a plastic bag return location at your local grocery store.
However, it doesn’t mean that getting tons of plastic bags like this Walmart shopper is okay, which is why so many Reddit users were quick to share their own qualms.
One user noted, “I absolutely hate when I get tons of double-bagged items or single items in single bags, especially when I’ve explicitly asked for the lowest number of bags possible.”
“It’s pretty hard to believe that they decided to put each item into its own bag,” said another.
Walmart has never necessarily been the most vocal about reducing its carbon footprint, even with many states putting mandates on plastic bags. However, it might finally be time for the store to step up and consider the harm that they are doing to the environment.
