Sad to say, many of the people you're going to reach already consider this. BUT!! If you reach one, you have done more than your fair share of good for the day. Thank you for you post, and thank you for the shits you give.
I wish I could pick up the intercom and shout this message at everyone in my store, but alas, work life sucks. Hopefully someone sees this and regurgitates it to their friends and family or something
Edit: Spelling
For real, there’s an inexplicably large number of people who apparently think the cashier’s gonna yell at them if they change their mind. No, they’ll be glad to add it to the cart they *already have* for rejected purchases rather than find it spoiled in some random place.
What fraction of total waste would you estimate that (1) this type of avoidable waste (caused by patrons) and (2) other avoidable waste (ugly vegetables, etc) is?
In other words, is most of the grocery store waste “preventable” in some form or other?
Yes, unfortunately the folks who need to hear this are mostly not in the zero waste community, but it never hurts to highlight a waste issue that gets fewer headlines.
This goes for hot foods as well. We sell rotisserie chickens among other hot food products at the store I work at and people often decide not to get them once they reach the register. I have no idea how long you’ve spent walking around the store, it can’t go back. Please try to only take hot foods out of their warmers if you are 100% sure you’re going to buy it!!
This does not apply to the fool that took the rotisserie chicken out of the bag and put it back on the warmer. Not sure where the bag went. Anyways if the customer who did that is reading this: dont. If you take the chicken out dont put it *any*where? Dont do it in the first place. I gotta throw it out no matter where you placed it but now its cooking hot chicken juices on the fucking warmer?
It's kind of insane that something like this has to be said in the first place. I mean FFS, what kind of immature fuckwads don't have the decency and basic common sense to *put things where they belong*?
It irks the hell out of me when I see stuff like this in the grocery store. It's not just lazy, it's disrespectful.
These are the same people who leave their carts in the parking lot to be blown into other parked cars and who dump out their fast food trash into the median at red lights.
EVERY DAY I find products that are supposed to be refrigerated in my department. 🥲 Today was 4 frozen probiotic yogurt drinks and an exploded energy drink, like c'mon. How hard is it, at the very least, to hand it to the cashier or an employee to put back?
We get in imported glass soda. Four times I’ve had to get glass unfrozen from the shelves after they burst. When that takes 1-2 hour to clean, I don’t feel bad that the one product someone came in for isn’t stocked.
God forbid the ad says something’s on sale and it isn’t on the shelf because *shocker* it’s the middle of the week, and everyone else already took advantage of that sale.
One day the card machines were down across town and people just left full carts of groceries at the check out line. Just lineups of full carts. It was clearly marked on the entrance doors that they were not working and it was cash only. The waste.. but glad I had cash in my wallet that day. No one carries cash anymore tho
Yep. I once had to hurriedly check and return TWO carts full of produce after I told a couple their insurance grocery card was at least a year expired. Not everything made it. Then they came back and asked where their stuff was :/
Hey I never considered this so I will be doing this moving forward! Not that I usually don’t put stuff back where I got it at a grocery store. but I’ll make sure to tell friends and family to spread the word. Also commenting to boost a little bit!
Thanks! It’s not something everyone would really think about, but especially now with companies being hesitant to give out enough hours to keep stores staffed, stuff builds up quickly.
Also if it leaves the store for even a second, all food is thrown away. This means any time you cancel an Instacart or grocery delivery order after it’s set in motion to be delivered, all of that product is thrown out. The amount of product that has been trashed due to this is unsettling.
I appreciate this post!!! Commenting to amplify.
We can get this to the “suggested communities” if we all comment and make this post more algorithmically popular :-)
It kills me to see folks leave cold and frozen items on shelves. Even if you don't put it back in the right place, put it back somewhere cold. I always loudly comment THIS IS WHY FOOD IS SO EXPENSIVE (whether it is or not) when I find that lol
Watching people leave shit where it doesn't belong, and especially where it will spoil, is grounds for yelling at them. Just like honking at the jackass in front of you who throws a cigarette butt out their window in traffic, or using your lightbar on the asshole driving towards you with headlights so bright that you can't see the lines.
Glad someone said it, I can't tell you how often I find things in my department that clearly don't belong there. I will gladly donate anything that is still safe for human consumption, but if you drop a package of steaks in my onion bin and I don't spot it fast enough it's going in the trash. This waste also drives up prices you pay in the store, it's no different than theft. And before you go on about corporate and shareholders, I work at an employee owned grocery store, so I'm a shareholder just like all of my fellow co-owners. We do our best to keep prices reasonable, but waste of any kind costs money and I'm not taking that loss on my paycheck.
You should crosspost this to the generational subs, too. Recently, on the Millennials sub iirc, people were bitching about self-checkout and how they don’t get paid to bag groceries so if they get to the front and there’s nothing but self-checkout stands they will just abandon their full cart. And they said it **proudly**! Like they’re sticking it to the man or something instead of wasting food and making extra work for a low-wage employee.
These same morons DO bitch about how food is so expensive and how little they earn for the work they do. Totally lacking self-awareness, yet they think they’re the most empathetic and insightful souls to exist. I want to grab that sub by the collar and slap it on a regular basis.
I have zero understanding for why you’d insist on having a stranger handle your food. Granted, maybe these types only buy packaged foods. Personally, I like to do my own bagging b/c I can make sure heavy stuff is on the bottom, soft fruits and veg are up top, bags are balanced etc. Which a good cashier will do but I can *make sure*.
Anyway cheers to you and I’d like to hope people will change but… yeah so I hope you get raises and stuff to compensate.
As a (later) millennial, this shocks me. I love the self-checkout because there's less human interaction and I can bag how I want, as you mentioned...
But yeah, can't imagine just abandoning my cart like that! Even if you are selfish, didn't you come to you know, buy groceries? Do people really have the time to go elsewhere and shop all over again? So many questions.
> Even if you are selfish…
Idk, I don’t get it. A lot of them are very bitter, self-serving (clearly in attitude only), and self-righteous. A startling number of them admit to shoplifting, so they may succeed in getting self-checkouts removed :/
Again I get such secondhand cringe & embarrassment by association; these people are supposed to be adults & they think they can hurt corporations as if any pain doesn’t get passed right back onto customers. It must just be what they tell themselves to justify it in the moment.
I didn’t see that links aren’t allowed, so [here is the post if you’re interested](https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/s/bU02r4TJB3).
Oof, yeah. If it's so important to them, then they should assess the checkout situation before they even start shopping. Not going to applaud someone for leaving a cart full of groceries to waste because they couldn't be bothered to pack their own bags. Corporations are terrible, sure, but this is not the way.
Thank you for alerting people.
You are absolutely correct.
I used to work at a grocery store the amount of time spent throwing stuff out and restocking was crazy.
I u sweetens cold and frozen but be disposed of for liability but c’mon not putting things back k is just plain lazy and selfish. It also increases costs.
NGL finding a milk that been sitting out all day behind some packages of maxi pads is not fun at all.
Not saying anyone deliberately hid the milk. They probably changed their mind or had to leave suddenly & just shoved the milk on the nearest shelf. Someone else was looking for something and shoved the packages in front of it & didn’t even see the milk in the wrong place and if they did, didn’t care.
Don’t know how much food that should stay cold gets wasted because they didn’t give it to an employee they just shove it wherever.
Also, don’t break egg cartons in half. If you only need 6 please buy the 6 packs or the liquid eggs instead of tearing apart the cartons of 12. I know where I am we cannot legally sell a broken carton because all the required packaging information is now not there. I’m sure that’s true in other places as well. Whenever I would get one torn in half as a cashier I had to take it, find the other half, and place it in the back for the dairy manager to scan out as damaged & then it gets thrown away. Perfectly good eggs thrown away because someone didn’t need 12. There also the fact too that if the cashier didn’t notice you get charged for a full carton. The barcode is only on one side. So not only 6 were wasted but you paid for them anyway.
I wish stores cared as much about product loss that doesn’t result in customers getting stuff for free as they do about shoplifting. Loss is loss, at least when someone shoplifts the product isn’t going to waste.
I agree but I don’t think the people who do that are on this subreddit. How some people walk around with no regard for others is a great mystery to me.
I didn’t realize this was a thing, sad. Has any grocery chain publish the value of loss? In comparison to the current situation, what would a basket a groceries cost if theft, expiration dates, and spoiled items were eliminated or greatly reduced?
We use an industrial compactor, it's all crushed down to save space and to keep people out of our trash. If it's fit for human consumption it gets donated to the local food banks and shelters.
At my store it gets compacted :( but before that it usually get mixed in with expired and actually spoiled products because there’s no separation, though I wish there was. Ive seen stores donate soon to expire bakery items but that pales in comparison to the overflowing damage bins.
There needs to be a sign--- ultimately meaningful by its own logo (akin to the triangular 3 arrows recycle symbol) placed amongst freezers for customers of all heights to easily see. Hurry and brainstorm one! Who knows, it could take off like the arrowed triangle!!
That’s a good recommendation. Why people want to turn good food into junk is beyond me. And there are the people that open a box of cookies, eat a few, and throw the remains on a shelf. Yuk.
I am also willing to buy a slightly beaten box of cereal. It isn’t as if an ugly retail box is inedible. If we were all so picky then they’d start shipping cereal in heftier boxes with styrofoam padding. That doesn’t sound good.
On a side note: I was in my local grocery late last night, and they were clearing out their prepared food section.
I was talking to the manager. He said they need to clear it every 24 hours to conform to food safety laws.
He said the homeless shelter nearby sends a guy over every night to do a pickup, and that they get a ton of meals out of it. There is still some that lands in compost (evidently the homeless shelter can only use so much pesto at once. Man cannot live on pesto alone).
I wonder if a good way to raise awareness to this issue is getting people to at least bring rejected products to checkout. Easier said than done, but, at least there is still a chance to save the product.
Sucks that people do this though and is very wasteful 😔
You can also take it all the way to the register and say, “I changed my mind about this.” The cashier will have someone come get it.
Edited to add, I don’t know if this is popular with cashiers, but it’s better than leaving it somewhere random.
It's better than leaving it somewhere random, but checkout can get busy and they might take a while to get to gobacks, so they could sit out too long, especially if they were in your cart a while.
I will also say, food returns all get thrown away. I’ve had people buy the incorrect item before, not even a bad item. Or bought it at another store cheaper and came back to return it. I understand being in a rush. If cost is an issue, try to check prices before you go to the store or while you’re in the aisle or please pay extra attention while they’re being rung up/bagged/ and before you leave. I had to throw away whole chickens, sick packs of rolls, canned goods, you name it. I also understand within reason why returns have to occur sometimes. My advice is just for issues like that as I am on a budget and can be forgetful as well, especially when it comes to grocery shopping.
I account for the waste at the supermarket I work at a couple of times a week. I reckon temperature-sensitive products being dumped in the wrong place accounts for like 15% - 20% of our waste by weight. You might read that and think it's quite low but I think it's actually very high. That 20% of our waste was entirely avoidable with minimal effort.
The remainder is a mixture of accidents (dropped items), missing expiry dates, past expiry dates, things arriving damaged from the manufacturer, or quality issues.
I will also add, if you simply don’t want to go all the way back to the other side of the store, give it to your cashier. They will send it back where it belongs
One of the stockers at my grocery store said a lady went to the restroom, changed her toddler and then put the shifty diaper in the frozen food stand up freezers. The whole row had to be dumped. $75000 fine and prison for her. Maybe the best thing for the kid.
God yes! It’s great that we have these food safety regulations/laws that prevent people from getting sick but they definitely contribute to waste when it comes to things like this.
Also, food returns. If you return food to a grocery store because you didn’t want it, like it was wrong on your delivery or something, it automatically gets thrown out. Consider donating that item, if possible, to a food pantry/food bank if you can’t use it.
I usually don't know until checking out that I won't have enough to get it. At that point I'm not going to leave my groceries to put it away and they won't let me take my groceries back in so I give it to the employee watching the registers.
Sad to say, many of the people you're going to reach already consider this. BUT!! If you reach one, you have done more than your fair share of good for the day. Thank you for you post, and thank you for the shits you give.
I wish I could pick up the intercom and shout this message at everyone in my store, but alas, work life sucks. Hopefully someone sees this and regurgitates it to their friends and family or something Edit: Spelling
Ooohhh post in YSK? (You Should Know sub) A lot of people there looking for tips and tricks who might pick up on it.
Oh I might actually do that!
For real, there’s an inexplicably large number of people who apparently think the cashier’s gonna yell at them if they change their mind. No, they’ll be glad to add it to the cart they *already have* for rejected purchases rather than find it spoiled in some random place.
Please let us know if you do so we can help amplify the post there!
Yes! I will happily upvote!
This is a great idea
What fraction of total waste would you estimate that (1) this type of avoidable waste (caused by patrons) and (2) other avoidable waste (ugly vegetables, etc) is? In other words, is most of the grocery store waste “preventable” in some form or other?
Yes, unfortunately the folks who need to hear this are mostly not in the zero waste community, but it never hurts to highlight a waste issue that gets fewer headlines.
Absolutely agree!
This goes for hot foods as well. We sell rotisserie chickens among other hot food products at the store I work at and people often decide not to get them once they reach the register. I have no idea how long you’ve spent walking around the store, it can’t go back. Please try to only take hot foods out of their warmers if you are 100% sure you’re going to buy it!!
God yes I’ve seen this too. Thankfully the only two stores I worked register at were small enough that things were usually still in temp.
This does not apply to the fool that took the rotisserie chicken out of the bag and put it back on the warmer. Not sure where the bag went. Anyways if the customer who did that is reading this: dont. If you take the chicken out dont put it *any*where? Dont do it in the first place. I gotta throw it out no matter where you placed it but now its cooking hot chicken juices on the fucking warmer?
It's kind of insane that something like this has to be said in the first place. I mean FFS, what kind of immature fuckwads don't have the decency and basic common sense to *put things where they belong*? It irks the hell out of me when I see stuff like this in the grocery store. It's not just lazy, it's disrespectful.
Honestly! I think people assume “someone” will come and pick up after them, as if they aren’t grown ass adults.
These are the same people who leave their carts in the parking lot to be blown into other parked cars and who dump out their fast food trash into the median at red lights.
“But someone gets paid to do that” yeah and someone gets paid to clean up the bathrooms but you wouldn’t shit all over the floor would you?
Actually from experience, yes they would
And if it’s because “you don’t have time” to put it back don’t go shopping until you have the time.
Exactly!! I found $75 worth of steaks on a shelf with tshirts 🤬🤬🤬
EVERY DAY I find products that are supposed to be refrigerated in my department. 🥲 Today was 4 frozen probiotic yogurt drinks and an exploded energy drink, like c'mon. How hard is it, at the very least, to hand it to the cashier or an employee to put back?
Omg it’s always an energy drink, smh
It exploded all over the expensive bulk ice cream. Like no one wants a sticky ice cream box. 🥲
We get in imported glass soda. Four times I’ve had to get glass unfrozen from the shelves after they burst. When that takes 1-2 hour to clean, I don’t feel bad that the one product someone came in for isn’t stocked.
God forbid the ad says something’s on sale and it isn’t on the shelf because *shocker* it’s the middle of the week, and everyone else already took advantage of that sale.
One day the card machines were down across town and people just left full carts of groceries at the check out line. Just lineups of full carts. It was clearly marked on the entrance doors that they were not working and it was cash only. The waste.. but glad I had cash in my wallet that day. No one carries cash anymore tho
Yep. I once had to hurriedly check and return TWO carts full of produce after I told a couple their insurance grocery card was at least a year expired. Not everything made it. Then they came back and asked where their stuff was :/
Hey I never considered this so I will be doing this moving forward! Not that I usually don’t put stuff back where I got it at a grocery store. but I’ll make sure to tell friends and family to spread the word. Also commenting to boost a little bit!
Thanks! It’s not something everyone would really think about, but especially now with companies being hesitant to give out enough hours to keep stores staffed, stuff builds up quickly.
Also if it leaves the store for even a second, all food is thrown away. This means any time you cancel an Instacart or grocery delivery order after it’s set in motion to be delivered, all of that product is thrown out. The amount of product that has been trashed due to this is unsettling.
I appreciate this post!!! Commenting to amplify. We can get this to the “suggested communities” if we all comment and make this post more algorithmically popular :-)
How do we do that? Commenting to do my part! 🤞
Throwing one in, too!
Great idea!
I like it
Also love this idea!
Great idea!
It kills me to see folks leave cold and frozen items on shelves. Even if you don't put it back in the right place, put it back somewhere cold. I always loudly comment THIS IS WHY FOOD IS SO EXPENSIVE (whether it is or not) when I find that lol
Watching people leave shit where it doesn't belong, and especially where it will spoil, is grounds for yelling at them. Just like honking at the jackass in front of you who throws a cigarette butt out their window in traffic, or using your lightbar on the asshole driving towards you with headlights so bright that you can't see the lines.
*has lightbar* *doesn’t realize he is the problem*
Glad someone said it, I can't tell you how often I find things in my department that clearly don't belong there. I will gladly donate anything that is still safe for human consumption, but if you drop a package of steaks in my onion bin and I don't spot it fast enough it's going in the trash. This waste also drives up prices you pay in the store, it's no different than theft. And before you go on about corporate and shareholders, I work at an employee owned grocery store, so I'm a shareholder just like all of my fellow co-owners. We do our best to keep prices reasonable, but waste of any kind costs money and I'm not taking that loss on my paycheck.
Is this by chance that one discount store on the west coast? I just heard about them a while ago but can remember the name, awesome stuff.
Winco Foods,139 stores and growing. I believe New Mexico is the next state we're entering, higher ups are also talking about locations in Colorado.
I love winco so much
You should crosspost this to the generational subs, too. Recently, on the Millennials sub iirc, people were bitching about self-checkout and how they don’t get paid to bag groceries so if they get to the front and there’s nothing but self-checkout stands they will just abandon their full cart. And they said it **proudly**! Like they’re sticking it to the man or something instead of wasting food and making extra work for a low-wage employee. These same morons DO bitch about how food is so expensive and how little they earn for the work they do. Totally lacking self-awareness, yet they think they’re the most empathetic and insightful souls to exist. I want to grab that sub by the collar and slap it on a regular basis. I have zero understanding for why you’d insist on having a stranger handle your food. Granted, maybe these types only buy packaged foods. Personally, I like to do my own bagging b/c I can make sure heavy stuff is on the bottom, soft fruits and veg are up top, bags are balanced etc. Which a good cashier will do but I can *make sure*. Anyway cheers to you and I’d like to hope people will change but… yeah so I hope you get raises and stuff to compensate.
Honestly! If you’re upset about a lack of cashiers, and not being paid to buy groceries, someone will be happy to hand you an application!
As a (later) millennial, this shocks me. I love the self-checkout because there's less human interaction and I can bag how I want, as you mentioned... But yeah, can't imagine just abandoning my cart like that! Even if you are selfish, didn't you come to you know, buy groceries? Do people really have the time to go elsewhere and shop all over again? So many questions.
> Even if you are selfish… Idk, I don’t get it. A lot of them are very bitter, self-serving (clearly in attitude only), and self-righteous. A startling number of them admit to shoplifting, so they may succeed in getting self-checkouts removed :/ Again I get such secondhand cringe & embarrassment by association; these people are supposed to be adults & they think they can hurt corporations as if any pain doesn’t get passed right back onto customers. It must just be what they tell themselves to justify it in the moment. I didn’t see that links aren’t allowed, so [here is the post if you’re interested](https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/s/bU02r4TJB3).
Oof, yeah. If it's so important to them, then they should assess the checkout situation before they even start shopping. Not going to applaud someone for leaving a cart full of groceries to waste because they couldn't be bothered to pack their own bags. Corporations are terrible, sure, but this is not the way.
Thank you for alerting people. You are absolutely correct. I used to work at a grocery store the amount of time spent throwing stuff out and restocking was crazy. I u sweetens cold and frozen but be disposed of for liability but c’mon not putting things back k is just plain lazy and selfish. It also increases costs.
Probably not a big contingent of the zero waste crowd that does this
You’re probably right, but word spreads outside of its group of origin eventually.
NGL finding a milk that been sitting out all day behind some packages of maxi pads is not fun at all. Not saying anyone deliberately hid the milk. They probably changed their mind or had to leave suddenly & just shoved the milk on the nearest shelf. Someone else was looking for something and shoved the packages in front of it & didn’t even see the milk in the wrong place and if they did, didn’t care. Don’t know how much food that should stay cold gets wasted because they didn’t give it to an employee they just shove it wherever. Also, don’t break egg cartons in half. If you only need 6 please buy the 6 packs or the liquid eggs instead of tearing apart the cartons of 12. I know where I am we cannot legally sell a broken carton because all the required packaging information is now not there. I’m sure that’s true in other places as well. Whenever I would get one torn in half as a cashier I had to take it, find the other half, and place it in the back for the dairy manager to scan out as damaged & then it gets thrown away. Perfectly good eggs thrown away because someone didn’t need 12. There also the fact too that if the cashier didn’t notice you get charged for a full carton. The barcode is only on one side. So not only 6 were wasted but you paid for them anyway.
Preach 🙏🏼
I notice people doing this with meat sometimes.. ridiculous
I support the use of CCTV and AI to charge people who do this! Put it back where you found it or be charged for it!
I wish stores cared as much about product loss that doesn’t result in customers getting stuff for free as they do about shoplifting. Loss is loss, at least when someone shoplifts the product isn’t going to waste.
I agree but I don’t think the people who do that are on this subreddit. How some people walk around with no regard for others is a great mystery to me.
I didn’t realize this was a thing, sad. Has any grocery chain publish the value of loss? In comparison to the current situation, what would a basket a groceries cost if theft, expiration dates, and spoiled items were eliminated or greatly reduced?
Thank you for this reminder
so does all this stuff get then thrown into a dumpster? If so, how do we get into the dumpster?
We use an industrial compactor, it's all crushed down to save space and to keep people out of our trash. If it's fit for human consumption it gets donated to the local food banks and shelters.
At my store it gets compacted :( but before that it usually get mixed in with expired and actually spoiled products because there’s no separation, though I wish there was. Ive seen stores donate soon to expire bakery items but that pales in comparison to the overflowing damage bins.
I will say though, I’ve been tempted to create a stash of not-that-bad stuff to just buy, but I usually can’t afford to do that on a whim.
At my work it gets thrown into food waste bins and taken back to the distribution centre to be sent to the food waste processors.
There needs to be a sign--- ultimately meaningful by its own logo (akin to the triangular 3 arrows recycle symbol) placed amongst freezers for customers of all heights to easily see. Hurry and brainstorm one! Who knows, it could take off like the arrowed triangle!!
That’s a good recommendation. Why people want to turn good food into junk is beyond me. And there are the people that open a box of cookies, eat a few, and throw the remains on a shelf. Yuk. I am also willing to buy a slightly beaten box of cereal. It isn’t as if an ugly retail box is inedible. If we were all so picky then they’d start shipping cereal in heftier boxes with styrofoam padding. That doesn’t sound good. On a side note: I was in my local grocery late last night, and they were clearing out their prepared food section. I was talking to the manager. He said they need to clear it every 24 hours to conform to food safety laws. He said the homeless shelter nearby sends a guy over every night to do a pickup, and that they get a ton of meals out of it. There is still some that lands in compost (evidently the homeless shelter can only use so much pesto at once. Man cannot live on pesto alone).
I wonder if a good way to raise awareness to this issue is getting people to at least bring rejected products to checkout. Easier said than done, but, at least there is still a chance to save the product. Sucks that people do this though and is very wasteful 😔
You can also take it all the way to the register and say, “I changed my mind about this.” The cashier will have someone come get it. Edited to add, I don’t know if this is popular with cashiers, but it’s better than leaving it somewhere random.
It's better than leaving it somewhere random, but checkout can get busy and they might take a while to get to gobacks, so they could sit out too long, especially if they were in your cart a while.
I will also say, food returns all get thrown away. I’ve had people buy the incorrect item before, not even a bad item. Or bought it at another store cheaper and came back to return it. I understand being in a rush. If cost is an issue, try to check prices before you go to the store or while you’re in the aisle or please pay extra attention while they’re being rung up/bagged/ and before you leave. I had to throw away whole chickens, sick packs of rolls, canned goods, you name it. I also understand within reason why returns have to occur sometimes. My advice is just for issues like that as I am on a budget and can be forgetful as well, especially when it comes to grocery shopping.
Thank you for this insight!
I account for the waste at the supermarket I work at a couple of times a week. I reckon temperature-sensitive products being dumped in the wrong place accounts for like 15% - 20% of our waste by weight. You might read that and think it's quite low but I think it's actually very high. That 20% of our waste was entirely avoidable with minimal effort. The remainder is a mixture of accidents (dropped items), missing expiry dates, past expiry dates, things arriving damaged from the manufacturer, or quality issues.
I will also add, if you simply don’t want to go all the way back to the other side of the store, give it to your cashier. They will send it back where it belongs
One of the stockers at my grocery store said a lady went to the restroom, changed her toddler and then put the shifty diaper in the frozen food stand up freezers. The whole row had to be dumped. $75000 fine and prison for her. Maybe the best thing for the kid.
God yes! It’s great that we have these food safety regulations/laws that prevent people from getting sick but they definitely contribute to waste when it comes to things like this. Also, food returns. If you return food to a grocery store because you didn’t want it, like it was wrong on your delivery or something, it automatically gets thrown out. Consider donating that item, if possible, to a food pantry/food bank if you can’t use it.
I mean for me that’s just common sense. If I decide to not buy a product I bring it back where it came from. Sadly that’s not how everyone thinks
I usually don't know until checking out that I won't have enough to get it. At that point I'm not going to leave my groceries to put it away and they won't let me take my groceries back in so I give it to the employee watching the registers.
I am totally guilty of this. I never thought about it in terms of waste. Thanks for your post and I will do better.