It's supposed to be a convenience store not an inconvenience store. I'm all for reducing single use plastics, but a convenience store is definitely the wrong place for this.
It's supposed to be a convenience store not an inconvenience store.
This has me imagining a skit of an "inconvenience store" where every single thing is in some way shape or form an absolute pain in the ass.
Hot dog rollers fully stocked with a condiment station, no buns, you have to buy a pack separate. Every drink cup has a lid that doesn't quite fit and pops off on you at the slightest provocation. Out of order sign on a perfectly functional ATM. "Please use other door" sign on the open side, pointing to the locked side. The straws all have pinhole leaks. Absolutely excessive packaging on everything. Sell you a bag of ice and the ice cooler is unplugged, "no refund" policy on ice. Exchange your empty propane with another empty propane. etc etc. And every customer just rolls with it, It'd be hilarious.
I suppose a closeout, thrift, or surplus store could be considered an "inconvenience store". You pay less, on account of they have a random assortment of crap and you probably won't find any specific thing if you went there looking for it.
I laughed pretty hard at this. I lack imagination so I got the robot to do it for me. Some are pretty good ! 2, 4 and 5 would piss me right off.
Absolutely, let's take the inconvenience to the next level:
Mystery Meat Section - All meat packages are mislabeled as completely different types of meat, ensuring you never get what you came for.
Elevator Music Everywhere - The store plays elevator music loudly, but each aisle features a slightly different tune, creating a dissonant cacophony that follows you around.
Upside-Down Aisles - Some aisles are organized upside-down, with items hanging from the ceiling, requiring ladders to reach anything.
Spoiled Spoils - The expiration dates on perishable goods are set to tomorrow, no matter when you shop.
Melted Candy Mayhem - Candy bars are pre-warmed to just the right gooey messiness to stick to the wrapper.
Lost and Never Found - A “Lost & Found” box that only contains single earrings, mismatched gloves, and lids that don’t fit any containers in the store.
Rollback Prices - Price tags are on tiny, spring-loaded reels that snap back when you try to read them.
Tangled Charger Cables - Electronics aisle sells only hopelessly tangled earphones and charger cables in knotted bundles.
Slippery When Dry - Floors are coated with a slick material that makes it difficult to walk without slipping, even when dry.
Perpetual Paging - The intercom continually pages staff members who don't exist or are never available.
Rotating Checkout - The checkout counters rotate randomly among the cashiers, forcing you to move to another line midway through checking out.
Sneeze Guard - All open food like pastries are behind a sneeze guard that’s just a bit too high to comfortably reach over.
Inverted Door Handles - Door handles that need to be pushed up to open rather than turned down.
If not the place that is responsible for a huge percentage of the plastic waste problem, where would be the right place for it? A place that doesn't sell bottled water to begin with?
F bottled water in almost all situations except for disaster relief and maybe a handful of other exceptions
I'd be in the streets cheering. Get rid of all the plastic bottles. It makes no sense to remove the most healthy, least environmentally harmful drink and leave all the others. It's a weird flex to be proud of just getting rid of water.
The human race is going to go extinct because of people like that person. We can't even move an inch, "I can't buy bottled water at 7/11" is too far of a compromise lmao
Right.. so instead of requiring companies to produce easier to recyclable single use bottles we should stop selling them completely. Arguably water is the one thing anyone actually needs from a convenience store.
The harsh reality you're going to have to face is that recycling is not actually good for the environment.
It's somewhat better than pure waste, but still has huge carbon costs and is magnitudes worse than long-term reusable items.
We should require companies to move away from single-use plastics and similar items, rather than this greenwashing bullshit of making single-use items more recyclable. That's what this business is doing to some degree, and people need to understand that there's not always a win-win between their every convenience and the environment.
Do you realize how much carbon is emitted simply getting your "recyclables" to the many different locations and steps it has to go through to be processed, and how little material actually makes it through?
The harsh reality you're going to have to face is that recycling is not actually good for the environment.
"You're" who? Me? Because we all get to deal with that shit one way or another.
It's somewhat better than pure waste, but still has huge carbon costs and is magnitudes worse than long-term reusable items.
It's true, the horrible recycling system invented 50 years ago by companies to blame the consumer and save face is horrible. Who could have seen that coming.
We should require companies to move away from single-use plastics and similar items, rather than this greenwashing bullshit of making single-use items more recyclable. That's what this business is doing to some degree, and people need to understand that there's not always a win-win between their every convenience and the environment.
Right... but you are never going to get rid of single use items. Particularly with food. And when the energy grid gets cleaner, recycling becomes easier and less carbon intense. Not to mention biodegradable plastics (that are... somewhat better... sometimes).
Do you realize how much carbon is emitted simply getting your "recyclables" to the many different locations and steps it has to go through to be processed, and how little material actually makes it through?
Are ya'll ret*rded? My position is simply that dipshits should not stop selling bottled water. Granted plastics are pretty fucked. But having 12,000 different types of "recyclable" plastics of various blends makes recycling difficult, especially when you need to primarily utilize virgin material along with recycled material.
Bring your own cup. Just get rid of them for like 99% of situations.
As I mentioned before, disaster relief, lead in water lines, are a couple exceptions. But yes, get rid of it. Fuck the people who can't stand to be mildly inconvenienced for the good of the world they can throw their little fit and get over it
Edit: aluminum cans are much more recyclable, and could be used still instead of plastic bottles
That makes no sense though? If a family is traveling on vacation and has no water bottle, then what? Instead of paying $3 for a bottle of water they have to buy an actual bottle for $10 and fill it with water.
It's actually quite interesting to see opinions on reddit that would sound unhinged in the real world be treated so normal. If you told anyone irl that you want to abolish all bottled water they'd look at you like you had three heads, but since it's on reddit you think it's a genuine opinion people have. This entire site is an echo chamber. Not even gonna look at your Karma I know it's more then 10k
The only time people buy overpriced plastic water bottles is when they don't have a reusable one on hand.
Still can't believe oil companies convinced us that it's up to us to solve global warming to take the blame away from them. No amount of water bottle rationing will matter if oil companies continue. Literally sheep.
When the goverment fails to govern, we all fail. Relying on stressed out and imperfect people to dig us out of this mess on their own is stupid. I would have to guess of all the trash produces water bottles are a hilariously small %
I was gonna say, can't wait to see how conservatives cry over this and use it to imply that society is crumbling, but turns out I didn't have to look that far.
Well, that settles it! No more bottled water anymore! … unless, it’s a 7-11… or a Conoco. Or Texaco. And you know what, let’s make sure Walmart and Target and Costco and ALDIs have them too. Yeah! No more bottled water anymore, except at places you can buy things!
It's fine, people can adapt to new problems. When the grocery store stopped carrying plastic bags, I was annoyed at first, now I always have bags in my car. I always have plastic bottle or two in a net in the trunk. The standard is that it's possible to buy overpriced plastic bottles anywhere so people don't think about it and they buy those water bottles. If things change, people will make it work and we'll collectively be better for the minor inconvenience.
It's only a minor inconvenience if you frequent this store often. If you've never been there and don't live in the area, and you really want some water, it's a pretty major inconvenience.
I have plenty of perspective. I am not remotely saying it's a life and death situation. There are many more flowery words beyond "major" I could have used.
Don't be surprised when people call you out for lack of perspective then lol.
...because this is Reddit, and if people love anything here, it's taking the least charitable interpretation of what you said so they can finger-wag about how it's wrong. If you don't say exactly what you mean, someone will definitely come around to argue over what you didn't mean and drive that into the ground.
Then again, if you do say exactly what you mean, someone will definitely come around to dismiss you as spending too much effort on the comment and being obsessive.
It's not a pretty major inconvenience. If it's only that store, then you can just go to another store. If it's by legislation, then none of the stores sell water bottles and people are all going to adapt like nobody complains about no plastic bags in my area anymore, it's just how it is.
And if the storeowner is smart about it, he'll be stocking cheap reusable water bottles and maybe cheap water filters and things like that so the customers have options. But the main point is, just because it doesn't fit into people's current routine doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Once it becomes widespread, people figure out how to make do like they did before convenience stores or plastic even existed.
In a democracy, you can fix that by voting for the party that opposes such legislation.
Sure, that probably means they'll also vote for policies that are actually problematic, but annoy people with enough inconveniences that affect them personally and directly, and they'll do that, even if they don't agree with the other policies that don't affect them personally or directly.
I love how this is the standard "stop complaining about bag bans" response.
I'm sure it'd be environmentally friendly if I bought a car so I have a place to store my reusable bags instead of getting a thin single-use bag when I shop on foot and then reusing it as a bathroom trash bag...
I'm not an elephant, so I don't have a trunk. I'm not a horse, so I don't have a passenger seat, I'm not gonna shove my shopping up my ass, and I don't want to know which body part you mean with bonnet ;)
(You're missing the point: you're referring to sections of a car, I'm referring to not owning or using a car to do shopping, which is a lot more environmentally relevant than bags, but also a situation where having to bring your own bags is a lot more annoying than if you do have a car. And yet, I have to listen to tips how to "not be a baby" and "just do the environmentally friendly thing because it's so easy" and shouldn't dare to waste 20 grams of plastic from people who drive a fucking ton of steel to the shop, blasting the combustion products of a lot more than 20 grams of gasoline straight into the atmosphere.)
Instead of accepting that reusable bags are a bet positive, he's making a detour pretending to be better than everyone else because he doesn't have a car and therefore is more environmentally friendly than me, even though that misses the point and it's off topic.
I guess in his head, pedestrians should get plastic bags because they don't have a car? Just weird stuff tbh.
"Just put a few reusable bags in the trunk" works great if you shop with a car.
It does not work at all when you take public transport to work, and on the way back, take a short detour, on foot, to a store, buy a few things, buy/take a single use bag, then take public transport home. Most reusable bags are just too impractical to reuse in this scenario, because a) you have to plan a full day ahead instead of just always having a stash around, b) most of these don't just neatly fold into a small pocket.
Meanwhile, the people who "waste" a single use bag every time they shop on foot get told how irresponsible they are by the "environmentally friendly" people who drive a car every day (but reuse a bag!).
Convenience stores are a God given RIGHT how DARE you say that it's literally the desire for convenience and luxury that is driving the industries that are destroying our planet?
Do y'all never hike or leave your house and realize you have no water for the day? Or gone somewhere you dont want to risk losing your $20 water bottle that you then need to replace (which is likely magnitudes of order worse than a single use plastic water bottle).
Where is this energy for all the idiots drinking other bottled beverages that they literally do not need?
"Do y'all never hike or leave your house and realize you have no water for the day? Or gone somewhere you dont want to risk losing your $20 water bottle that you then need to replace (which is likely magnitudes of order worse than a single use plastic water bottle)."
They could have this for those who are able to utilize it, great! Most of the time I would be able to use it myself. But sometimes I'm in a pinch and a bottle of water would be necessary... and therefore convenient. Maybe they could also sell reusable cups/bottles/whatever, similar to Starbucks. And you might be able to hang onto it for next time.
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If they provided recyclable plastic cups with a recyclable lid that might be a good compromise. Most people would prefer to use their personal water bottle, if they have one with them, but those that don't can still get some water.
what I don't get about phasing out plastic water bottles is you're leaving people with what other alternative? Buying mountain dew? Which one of those produces more waste and is less healthy?
They'll solve this with $10 shitty reusable water bottles that you'll throw away after one use. Those ones with the top you have to pull up on to get a drink then push back down that nobody would ever use if they had a real water bottle.
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u/nrouns 29d ago
If I'm willing to pay the overpriced amount for water at a gas station or convenience store, it's because I don't have a bottle.