The minimarket that stopped handing out bags

Everyone agrees there are too many plastic carrier bags on the streets of Heliopolis, and everyone agrees it is somebody else's job.

The shopper says the shops hand them out without asking. The shopkeeper says customers expect them and will walk to the next shop if refused. The shops say the wholesaler throws them in free with every delivery, and the wholesaler says the shops keep ordering more. Further up there are rules nobody enforces and factories that answer to someone else again. Each person in the chain is decent and has a good reason. The circumstances are heavier than all of them together.

This is how most stuck things stay stuck. Every part of the system is waiting for the part above it to move first.

The way out is almost embarrassingly small. Picture one minimarket owner who keeps a basket of cloth bags by the till, asks every customer whether they need a bag before reaching for one, and knocks a little off for anyone who brings their own. It is not a policy for the city. It is one counter. Small enough that it can actually work. Big enough that he now owns the result, and his regulars notice when he slips.

Within a few months it is simply how that shop does things.

Then comes the harder part, the part that changes a street. Getting the man who runs the shop next door to try it too.