Time for the old man to post as part of the Faulkner’s reduction of their plastic footprint!

Anyway, we have been good, really good, at refusing plastic bags when shopping.  We assiduously take our ‘bags for life’ to the supermarket and refuse bags even if it means we leave shops with arms laden with tightly held purchases. So far, so good we say to ourselves.

Here’s a kicker though. Recently, we have been helping #1 son with landscaping his rear garden. This involved several trips to my favourite place, the DIY centre.  I collected several items required for fixing and fastening the wooden sleepers into very passable raised garden beds (since sanded and stained by said son and GF).  At the checkout I politely refused the plastic bag offered and left, arms laden with my purchases – all of which were in plastic. It seems I refused a relatively small amount of plastic (one very light and thin plastic bag) but left with several more substantial plastic containers!  I made very little relative impact in refusing the bag but every bit helps, right?

Anyway, I am old enough to remember the hardware shops of old – there was one just around the corner from my Grandma’s house in Radford, Nottingham – the owner, his lorry and his shop were always immaculately presented.  You could buy small amounts of screws, nails, single tap washers and so on. A less organised hardware shop featured in the Two Ronnies Four Candles sketch (click here: Four Candles ).

So what has changed and why? I ask myself.  Well, for a start we consumers have driven a change (as we have in food retailing, clothing, whiteware etc.) as we shop for the lowest price, and guess what? The small hardware retailers couldn’t compete AND one of the ways for the large, cheap retailers to make money is by reducing the ‘cost to serve’ by prepackaging and barcoding to make the taking of our money as quick and efficient as possible. Yes, we made this happen, perhaps unwittingly, but we did.

So, does anyone know where I can find a hardware shop where I can buy screws and nails by the 100 grams, packaged in paper bags?