30 January 2008

Status Symbols: Shopping and Schlepping (Reprise)




People like to reuse shopping bags and those little gift bags from fancy stores. Its a status thing; I get it. Its free advertising for the company and, more importantly, you get to remind people where you shopped for a few extra days as you carry your tuna fish tupperware to and fro.

But when did those brown Starbucks bags become part of the pack?!

Sephora I can accept, Saks, Lord & Taylor, whatever, I'll even give you on a pass on the old school Bloomingdales "Medium Brown Bags", arguably the first status symbol shopping bag, but other than that, thats it.

A Starbucks bag does not qualify. You can throw that out after you've transported your coffee and scone to your office. Your 85% Post Consumer Recycled Paper Starbucks bag is not a status symbol. Throw it out so it can be consumed again or use it to pick up your pooches post consumer poo.

Heres a general rule: Any bag where you'd have to shake the crumbs out of before reusing should be off the list. Just because your venti pumpkin spice latte cost $6 doesn't mean its fancy.

Do you see people reusing their plastic Dunkin Donuts shopping bags? Well, follow their lead.

Ooh, maybe I'll get 50 munchinks and reuse the munchkin box as a lunch pail!









3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not a status thing. It's a stop-destroying-our-Earth thing. Really.

Anonymous said...

Oh really? How so? Please, give it to me mean and green. It is most certainly a status thing.

Heather said...

Why on earth would you think people reusing Starbucks bags are doing so for status reasons? I mean, Starbucks? Come on now.

I re-use whatever bags I have to take my lunch to work. I tend to avoid Starbucks, so I don't use those. Most of the time my lunch bags are from Walgreens, Target, or are just plain bags the local small stores use. Occasionally, they are from Nordstrom, Godiva or Sephora. Some of us just don't like to be wasteful and want to re-use things when possible.