Canadian Grocery Store Eco-Shames Its Own Customers

              The East West Market, an independent Canadian grocery store, claims to be sick and tired of its customers using plastic bags to carry home their comestibles. The supermarket has long been pushing its patrons to use reusable bags as part of its #JoinTheEarthMovement, going so far as to charge its customers 5 cents per plastic bag. This ploy didn’t work, so now it’s going even further. The store has decided to try to shame its patrons into reducing their eco-footprint by putting embarrassing logos on both sides of their synthetic bags. The logos include “Colon Care Co-Op,” and “Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium.” Ads for “Wart Ointment” grace other bags.

              The store posted a video for the bogus bags on its Facebook page, accompanied by the following virtue-signaling message: “Over 1 million plastic bags are used every minute, most of which are filled once, then discarded. So, we redesigned our bags to stop people from taking them, helping customers remember a reusable bag and think twice about single-use plastic.”     

                David Lee Kwen, East West Market’s owner, told VancouverIsAwesome.com: "So many people own reusable bags but forget to bring them. We want to help customers remember their reusable bags in a way that will really stick with them.” Kwen also opined, in a statement obtained by Fox-10: "We hope that by creating discussions, we can minimize the use of plastics in general. This is a small step, but we hope it eventually can have a great impact.” (One small step for East West shoppers……one giant leap for mankind human beings).

   Bullshit.

                If the store’s primary concern was eliminating the use of plastic bags, it wouldn’t provide them. There wouldn’t be any inside the store. The outlet would be promoting its cloth bags (and E coli infections). Moreover, the store provides artificial bags in its produce and bakery departments, as well-- bags that haven’t been designed to mold the behavior of its customers.

                Kwen added of the store’s efforts: “And we do it all with fun.” Yes! What fun! It’s always amusing to hector, surcharge and shame one’s customers! No “The customer is always right” for the East West Market! That’s so yesteryear! So…unwoke!

                I can see people turning the ploy around on East West market and wanting to collect all the bags. Ironically, one day the whole set, in mint condition, will probably be worth lots of Loonies.

                “Hey, Bob, I see you’ve got the ‘Charmin Outlet Store’ bag there. Do you have the one that says ‘Dental Dams ‘R’ Us?’ I’d be willing to trade you a ‘Pedophile Place’ bag for it.”

                Someday soon, the store will likely realize its artificial ardor for eco-friendly sacks isn’t fooling anyone. When it does, it will bag the idea of shaming its own customers.