I am referring to the practice of buying certain products in bulk, or, more specifically, buying dish soap in bulk. A couple of years ago, I decided that it made more sense to buy a soap bottle once, and refill it from the bulk dish soap bin at the co-op. Cuts down on the plastic in the world, and would save money in the long run, right? Better for everybody, and creates the illusion that I am "part of the solution", right?
So, I've been doing this for a while and feeling pretty good about myself, and yesterday I decided to see just how much I was saving by reducing waste, cutting down on the production costs of the dish soap manufacturer and the store, and trying to determine exactly how much dish soap I'll have to buy to get myself out of debt.
A lot more than I thought, it turns out.
Buying 32 ounces of dish soap from the bulk bin, using my own bottle (bought from the co-op, by the way) runs about $6.20. The same amount of dish soap in a plastic bottle sitting on the shelf costs $4.69. So, if I understand, I am paying 25% more to reduce the production costs of a dish soap manufacturer. Cool.
I'm certainly no expert when it comes to capitalism, but it would seem that if you wanted to encourage recycling, re-using, reducing plastic waste, bulk purchasing, and all the other things that make shopping at community markets so great, wouldn't you want to incentivize, as they say, your customers to buy from the bulk bins? Long, long ago, when Patti Smith was new, and I first began to shop at these kinds of stores, you actually SAVED money by buying in bulk. Peanut butter was cheaper. Granola, too. I'm sure of it. Or, goddess help us, perhaps the entire thing has been one giant holistic scam.
On the other hand, maybe somebody should talk to Costco.
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