6 ms·
Is this a US phenomenon? Here in Germany, people always return their shopping carts. Yes, the carts take a coin as a deposit, which can be removed when the cart
by buggymcbugfix 11mo ago
Is this a US phenomenon? Here in Germany, people always return their shopping carts. Yes, the carts take a coin as a deposit, which can be removed when the cart is returned, but many people have shopping cart openers (for want of a better word) on their keyrings, that circumvent the deposit, yet I haven't EVER seen anyone leaving their shopping cart. I'd go so far as to say that'd be even less socially adequate than urinating in public.
I've been around Europe a fair bit and from Bulgaria to Portugal, people just return their carts. It's a no-brainer.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago[flagged]
- spookthesunset 11mo ago[flagged]
- slater 11mo ago> Masking did absolutely nothing to stop Covid It did.
- spookthesunset 11mo ago[flagged]
- slater 11mo ago> Keep on telling yourself that I will! > data doesn’t lie $5 sez you have some data that just so happens to confirm your biases, and i bet there's also some data that says masking actually did help. Utterly pointless arguing this nonsense, in the end it always just turns out to be speed-runs to some tedious conspiracy theories.
- 1718627440 11mo agoSo you think surgeries that are performed without medical masks, wouldn't have a higher infection rate?
- Izkata 11mo agoI would say not, for airborne viruses. Those masks are to keep the doctor's sweat, hair, and saliva out of the patient.
- trgn 11mo agoyou just explained it, they're not coin operated.
- bluedino 11mo agoAt ALDI stores they are!
- trgn 11mo agodo people abandon carts there?
- bluedino 11mo agoI don't get there often enough to know. I would assume it's rare, and ALDI shopper is different than say, a Wal-mart shopper.
- trgn 11mo agogerman precision shopper
- al_borland 11mo agoI don’t go to Aldi because of the coin thing in the shopping carts. I went there once, didn’t have at change, and had to carry everything until my arms got full, then just left. I’m not going to carry change with me all the time on the off chance I decide to go to Aldi. Every other store lets me take a cart for free, and I return it because it’s the right thing to do and I want them to remain free.
- 1718627440 11mo agoThey are still free, since it is a deposit, not a fee. Also don't you need to put in a coin, when you use a locker, in a museum or the library, or the train station? This is ubiquitous here. You don't need to use a real coin, they are also fake plastic coins for only this purpose, you can get everywhere, and also tools, which you put in to unlock, and then can immediately pull out again.
- gcbirzan 11mo agoIf it's on their keychain, do you really think they'd leave their keychain there?
- jq-r 11mo agoThe "coin" part is usually detachable, so no need to leave the whole set of keys with the cart during shopping.
- ceejayoz 11mo agoBut leaving it on is a good way to avoid forgetting to it.
- gcbirzan 11mo agoYes, but they do cost money and effort to get. A 25-50 eurocent coin is probably equivalent. The only thing that's useful about those things is that it's easier to get them faster.
- 1718627440 11mo agoWhere I live it is always 1€ coins.
- hananova 11mo agoThere’s ones with a “notch” in the coin part. So you unlock the cart, twist it, pull it out.
- buggymcbugfix 11mo agoHaha I was wondering if this part was unclear but assumed it was obvious from context, that the cart opener can be removed from the coin slit. Imagine leaving your keyring on your cart... yikes!
- gcbirzan 11mo agoThe reason my wife (I have coins) uses them is that it's just easier to access. No need to go through your coins (if you have any), you just put it in.
- iamnothere 11mo agoAldi is the only place in the US that I know of that uses this system. It works well enough, no carts in the lot, and surprisingly people sometimes leave a quarter in the cart as a sort of “pay it forward” minor charity. (Good because not everyone keeps change these days.)
- buggymcbugfix 11mo agoNaww, that is very sweet!
- Doxin 11mo agoI can't say for the US, but over here the coin system is ubiquitous, and if you've not got a coin you can ask at the service desk and they'll hand you a branded coin to use.
- testing22321 11mo agoLast time I asked in Canada they just gave me a regular Loonie ($1 coin)
- tguedes 11mo agoThe only downside of this in the US is that homeless people will tend to hang around Aldi's asking people if they can return their cart to get the coin. Most of them are friendly and thankful but every once in awhile an aggressive person would make me very uncomfortable. I also expect Aldi management isn't thrilled about homeless people camping outside their stores.
- kalx 11mo agoPeople here too return them. It is a social class question.
- buggymcbugfix 11mo agoHere, US?
- arwhatever 11mo agoThe difference between the ratio of people returning their carts at Wal-mart vs at the Natural Foods store where I live is substantial.
- PLMUV9A4UP27D 11mo agoGreetings from Finland. No deposit required for the carts, yet almost all carts are being returned (I can't remember when I last saw one not returned).
- HeinzStuckeIt 11mo agoWherever you are in Finland is more considerate than wherever I am in in Finland. Often when I arrive at my local Prisma there’s an employee outside wrangling abandoned carts.
- veeti 11mo agoIt happens: https://www.is.fi/hs-vantaa/art-2000006387011.html https://www.is.fi/hs-vantaa/art-2000006387011.html You have to read between the lines on why that is so.
- buggymcbugfix 11mo agoPS: This is not meant as snark, but rather an observation, that by means of a small nudge (in this case the coin deposit), people can learn to do the Right Thing. To quote Charlie Munger: > Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.
- bombcar 11mo agoI always thought it a sneaky way to pay children .25 cents a cart return. An enterprising 10 year old could rack a few bucks sometimes.
- brettgriffin 11mo agoWhy do the stores have the coin deposit if leaving the shopping cart, even if you circumvented the deposit, is morally more morally reprehensible than urinating in public? > Is this a US phenomenon Yeah, you can kind of do whatever you want here. It's sort of our thing
- mhb 11mo ago> It's sort of our thing Also it seems to be our thing to have an unbounded number of assholes who do stuff like throw rental scooters in rivers.
- super256 11mo agoDon't worry. While we don't have the shopping card issue in Germany, we do have the escooter-in-river issue! Here its mostly teens who throw rental escooters into rivers.
- skylurk 11mo agoBad for the rivers, of course, but it amazes me that the teens in Germany are actively engaged in keeping the sidewalks clean.
- brettgriffin 11mo agoFor the uninitiated, what's the subtext here? Is this about a trend in behavior of teens in Germany? Asking for the same reason I asked OP my question. I was just in Berlin and, second only to Tokyo, I've never* seen such conscientious group of people, including teens. * I'd actually place two other cities from that trip into the same #2 position: Zurich and Vienna.
- super256 11mo agoYes, it's unfortunately a trend to throw e-scooters into rivers. Unfortunately the government is still not collecting stats about this vandalism. Throwing e-scooters with batteries into rivers is dangerous, because the batteries contain poisonous metals. Unfortunately many people appreciate it when people throw these scooters into the river, because they are "annoyed be them when they are standing in their way on the sidewalk". Some links: (2025) 300+ e-scooters recovered from the Spree (river in Berlin) by Spree:publik activist Jan Ebel: https://www.morgenpost.de/bezirke/treptow-koepenick/article408665255/noch-vor-dem-ablegen-ziehen-sie-einen-e-scooter-aus-der-spree.html https://www.morgenpost.de/bezirke/treptow-koepenick/article4... (2024) Readers of "Neue Rottweiler Zeitung" mention e-scooters in the Neckar: https://www.nrwz.de/rottweil/e-scooter-laufen-gut-in-rottweil-und-manche-landen-im-fluss-482846.html https://www.nrwz.de/rottweil/e-scooter-laufen-gut-in-rottwei... (2021) 500+ e-scooters were thrown from the Hohenzollern bridge into the Rhine: https://www.golem.de/news/mikromobilitaet-im-rhein-liegen-hunderte-e-scooter-2106-157332.html https://www.golem.de/news/mikromobilitaet-im-rhein-liegen-hu... (2021) Dozens of e-scooters in the Main: https://www.fnp.de/frankfurt/chaoten-werfen-scooter-einfach-in-den-main-jetzt-sollen-sie-herausgefischt-werden-90825774.html https://www.fnp.de/frankfurt/chaoten-werfen-scooter-einfach-...
- tclover 11mo agoYou’re living in some different Germany. In the Germany where I’m living shopping carts are everywhere… (nrw)
- NekkoDroid 11mo agoIn my part of Germany (BW) I also almost never see carts outside of roughtly where they should be. Sometimes they are just lazily pushed under the enclosure (if you want to call it that), but most of the times they are just how they should be.
- tclover 11mo agoTook this picture close to the place where I’m living, people just come home with the cart and then drop it outside. This is Germany https://ibb.co/rGXfb0PY https://ibb.co/rGXfb0PY
- buggymcbugfix 11mo agoWhoa!
- bombcar 11mo agoThis is the true chaotic neutral option and you see it anywhere that walking is common AND the carts don’t lockup their wheels at the lot line. However, shopping carts SuCk on anything but smooth cement.
- snovymgodym 11mo agoYeah, looks like NRW alright
- ninkendo 11mo ago> Is this a US phenomenon? The answer to this question is always “no”. Regardless of the subject. Basically 100% of the time. At my local grocery store everyone returns their carts. In the other place in the US I lived 10 years ago, there were loose carts everywhere. The US is a very, very big country. Really more like 50 big countries. With huge variation in culture, income, background, etc. There’s barely anything you can say that applies to the whole country, regardless of the subject.
- binary132 11mo agosomeone clever ought to do some kind of statistical analysis and figure out what hidden variables are causing these differences.
- cocainemonster 11mo agowhat are you hinting towards?
- triceratops 11mo ago> what hidden variables are causing these differences Just one variable: the Jerk Scale.
- gverrilla 11mo agoIt was never said that it was a phenomenon on the whole country. It is a US phenomenom yes. When it exists in other countries it's because of Hollywood exporting american culture.
- linehedonist 11mo agoWhat about Gittertiere? https://www.reddit.com/r/Gittertiere/s/KIDj4EhElD https://www.reddit.com/r/Gittertiere/s/KIDj4EhElD
- buggymcbugfix 11mo agoOf course hooligans steal shopping carts. This was about people leaving shopping carts in the parking lot :)
- whazor 11mo agoRecently in NL many supermarkets have dropped the coin completely. But people have been conditioned for years to return the cart. Though there are cart thieves.
- 1718627440 11mo agoSame in Germany, it started during Corona, as people should touch things as less as possible.
- graemep 11mo agoIn the UK some places have it, some do not. Lidl does need the coin, Waitrose does not but has a system that stops you taking them out beyond the car park (there are warnings on, other supermarkets do not. Almost everyone returns them in all the supermarkets in my area.
- trashface 11mo agoMy elderly mom never shops at Aldi (in the US) because she can't figure out the coin thing. Given that she spends outrageous amounts on groceries, Aldi is losing a ton of money by paywalling the stupid cart.