I visited the Ingles at the intersection of Patton Ave. and Leicester Highway this evening at approximately 10 pm. Upon leaving the store at 10:15 pm, I encountered two young men apparently in charge of taking out the trash. The had in a cart the contents of the trash bins and the plastic bag recycling bin. One young man, apparently in training, asked the other “what do we do with this” to which the other replied, “just throw it all out”. Now, I’m by no means a “hippie” but I am certainly environmentally conscious and I am aware that plastic bags take over 7,000 years to break down in our landfills. I know that if my friends and neighbors who went through the trouble of collecting their plastic bags for recycling and bringing them to Ingles for the purpose of recycling found out that Ingles simply took their bags and threw them away, they’d be outraged. When I got to my car, I called the store. I asked the young woman who answered if the store manager, listed at the top of the receipt, Mike Brow, was there. As it was Sunday night, Mike Brown was not available. I asked for the manager on duty. The girl told me to hold for “Tom”. When Tom came to the phone, I relayed my concern to him, and he was immediately sarcastic and rude. He said, “It is Ingles policy to recycle plastic bags”. I told Tom that I realized that this was the policy and I was very glad that it was, I was simply concerned that the two young men in charge of implementing it at his store this specific evening were implementing it incorrectly. To that, Tom was excessively flippant and sarcastically told me he’d “just go fire them then”. I told him that I thought that that was unnecessary and that he probably should just make sure that they understood the policy and why it was important. Tom made another snide remark “thanking [me] for telling him how to do his job. At this point, I asked Tom for his last name. Tom said, “You don’t need my last name”. I told him that I would like to have it so that I could contact his district manager. Tom hung up the phone.
Take it as you will!
Beware where you recycle your plastic bags!
