AIBU? No carrier bags in Boots

You should shop with my husband. He produces a small round ball from his pocket. He undoes it and wow, one huge nylon bag. It holds a very large amount of shopping.
I'm sorry, but I've no idea where he got it.
That wasn't really very helpful though, was it?

I just take a nylon fold out shopping bags with me - £2 from Primark and they hold an inordinate amount.

Shop in John Lewis
I got a HUGE non-plastic bag in the Oxford Branch for 50p.

To be fair, they said it was a mistake that they had no bags. Though, I’m not sure why you would feel like a criminal, surely everybody else in store was in the same predicament.

Time to start bringing your own bags with you.

oh I did bring a couple of bags with me , but I had no idea what I was going to buy and what I settled on was too big for the bags.

To get out of the store I had to go down the escalator to the ground floor and walk through the shop to the exit carrying these gift sets under my arm, to top it all it was peeing down outside

fizzers I popped in to Boots to buy mascara (so no shopping bag required) saw something else on a 3 for 2 offer and bought it on impulse, largish items so I had to buy a paper carrier bag. It ripped before I got out the door, so they do need to up the quality of their paper bags. I was miffed too.

A carrier bag isnt a "sign" you've paid any more! Hasnt been for AGES and ages!. People often carry out unbagged produce now. With boxes big boxes they are easier to carry in a pile than in a bag bashing against your leg anyway. And they said it was an ordering error so I think youre being quite dramatic about a very small inconvenience.

Todays rain wasnt exactly a freak unforcast downpour either. If you forgot a brolly its an irritation but hardly boots' fault!

If you can remember to have money or cards to pay for items when you are shopping you can remember to take multi-use carrier bags with you. I have several compact fold up bags that are always in my handbags. For larger items or supermarket shopping just keep reusable bags of various sizes in the car. Shopping needs funds and bags. It's not that difficult.

I have a strawberry, a lemon and a grape in my handbag and lo and behold, with just a deft flick of my wrist, they turn into bags.
I also have several cotton ones for when I know I'm going to shop.

Very useful.

I am sorry, but I think you ABU. As others have said. Shops do not give bags, haven't for several years and modern roll-up tuck in a bag or pocket bags are so small, you can have 6 in your bag and not notice them.

I was in M&S today put clothes in in one bag, food in another and a present in a third. Simples.

I carry my own foldaway bags in my main handbag. It may have been inconvenient for you but the assistant did apologise. Mind you, you were lucky to be able to buy gift sets. I am trying to support my local shopping centre. I went into our Boots and the shelves were practically empty,apart from rows and rows of makeup brush sets. Id have been grateful to be able to buy a gift set. If the High Street wants people to support them. They really need to make sure their shops are well stocked with a good variety of items. I was so disappointed in Boots, bought a bottle of perfume and that was it.

I take a roomy shopping bag with me everywhere now. It holds my rain hat and tablet but holds a lot of shopping if needed. £5 in M&S.

You are being unreasonable You shouldn’t be furious with the shop you walk with your bags always: it was your fault. I always have a large bag for life folded up small in my handbag (if I know I ll be shopping I can slide two or three bags in)
Shops shouldn’t be giving bags away plastic a no no and paper is destroying trees
Be a Girl Guide/Boy Scout and be prepared

YABU. Shops should not be giving out plastic bags. In days before plastic they might have tied a bit of string round. Take your own bags shopping is the answer.

resposibility lies with the customer ie be prepared. I always carry a big but light bag tucked into my handbag. So very easy to blame other people

I would have thought by now, we would all have got into the habit of taking a bag with us when out shopping?

I can never seem to remember to take bags with me either (have dozens of bags for life!). I don’t get annoyed at shop though - I just get annoyed at myself- will soon be on that programme “Hoarders”!! ?

'Bags for life' are bulky, aren't they? You can buy thin strong nylon bags that have no more bulk or weight than a handkerchief.These nylon bags are easy to wash and dry and are durable.

If Boots sold these nylon bags for £2 each at the check out there would still be customers who failed to stuff the bag into their pocket ready for the next shopping.

Fizzers
You've obviously been living on another planet for some time so I'll bring you up to speed. The planet has a gargantuan problem with people like you bying plastic crap.

As well as the carrier bags, where do you think the crap housing those gift sets are going to end up ?

STFU Petra and go and sort out that big chip on your shoulder

How old are you, *Fizzer? A lot younger than me, I think. Earlier in my lifetime it was normal for people to expect to make their own plans to carry home their purchases.

If you were getting the week's groceries you took a roomy shopper with a string bag for extras tucked inside it, and perhaps an older, scruffier shopper for the potatoes and other vegetables - which were emptied straight into it after they were weighed, mud and all. After all, you were going to wash them before cooking.

If you nipped out in your lunch hour for a few essentials, you just had the string bag.

If you bought on impulse then you put up with the inconvenience of getting your stuff home and vowed not to do it again, and you carried the receipt conspicuously so as not to be accused of theft. Meanwhile the shop assistants (and anyone else watching) privately thought you a feckless spendthrift for not being prepared.

Than came the convenience and sheer luxury of plastic to wrap ready-made food and provide a never-ending supply of carrier bags. As a result, more than one generation has forgotten how to prepare food and how to be prepared themselves for acquiring it and other goods. Now it has dawned on most of the world how wasteful and environmentally damaging it is to throw away tons of the stuff every day.

I think it is more of a problem when you are buying clothing, especially for presents. At least John Lewis have the decency to wrap the item in a nice bit of tissue paper to protect it when it joins the rest of your shopping in your own bag.

I think, before the advent of carrier bags, Boots would have put those items in a paper bag similar to the ones you get in the greengrocers, and then you would put them in your own shopping bag/basket.

I think it is more worrying that Boots had simply forgotten to order more plastic bags. Perhaps they shouldn't be using them at all for hard goods.

I am even older, Elegran, and I took an actual basket until the 1970s. My last actual basket was one I'd bought in Spain and it held an awful lot of groceries.

I've still got my old string bag Elegran. Must be getting on for fifty years old now.