Strange Looks- A Rant

Today I experienced a very awkward moment.  After a day of gardening my family and I were ravenous for sandwiches.  Our local meat store had closed for the day, as well as the bakery.

My Meat Jar

 
At the meat counter I tried handing over my jar.  The woman working wouldn't take it.  I explained that the meat store we usually went to has never had a problem with it, how they usually weighed the meat first before putting it in my jar.

Reluctantly she took my jar and proceeded to wrap my meat in plastic wrap before putting it in. In a friendly manner, I told her I didn't want the wrapping.  

"I don't know, you're kinda pushing it now," she told me.

"I'd rather not take the meat at all if you have to include the wrapping," I explained.

Her face turned red and she looked around as if she were committing an action that would cost her, her job and quickly stuffed the meat inside.

I thanked her and walked on.

At the checkout I handed another lady my bag of buns, told her the quantity and recieted the code.  She looked at me like I was nuts, not to mention everyone behind me eying my jar of meat.  

Maybe if I were new at this I would have felt uncomfortable, but at this stage I'm actually pretty damn proud that I chose no waste and it seems this holds an aura of certainty and the woman didn't comment.

I walked out with my package-free purchases knowing I would never return to this particular store again.  Everyone walking out alongside me carried plastic bags and I felt a sort of sadness akin to defeat realizing how uneducated our society is about plastic.

If there were repetitive commercials about how our world uses over over 2 million plastic bags every minute and how those plastic bags are responsible for millions of marine animals deaths... if people knew their bags would take 20 to 1000 years to break down into toxic particles called polymer that contaminates our food chain, would people still act so casual about using them? 

I'll accept those strange looks, stand tall and keep going on this zero-waste path.  My dream is for the greater population to become conscious of their choices and demand a change in our chain-box stores.  After all, this ultimately comes down to the survival of our species as well as almost every other living species on our planet. You might think this is an extreme comment.  Search it.  Google it.  You'll quickly learn the harsh reality the consequences of our most common purchases have on our survival.