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Why are shopping carts always broken?

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Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#161

Post by resolutebat »

maxerickson wrote: post #146
IneffablePigeon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Painkillers are sold in packs of max 16 tablets in the UK (almost always 500mg for paracetamol, 200mg for ibuprofen). In addition they must be sold in blister packs not bottles, and all shops will only allow you to buy two packets per transaction (mix and match, you can’t have 2x paracetamol and 2x ibuprofen). I believe there are some exceptions for prescriptions. Obviously you can still overdose by going to multiple…

What criteria do you use to evaluate that intervention? Which really means, how do you begin to estimate the actual amount of harm reduction that it provides? Are there lots of cases where someone tried to overdose but was saved by it 'only' being 16 grams of paracetamol?

The grandparent of the post you're responding to provides stats showing that suicides/overdoses with OTC painkillers went down markedly after the change.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#162

Post by resolutebat »

HenryBemis wrote: post #157

This is why I was impressed that Tucker Carlson was impressed about the coin in the shopping cart. I've been to the US a bunch of times (a decade ago), and if memory serves well Walmart didn't have coins on their carts. In Europe though this mechanism exists in majority of the super markets (so I'm not surprised Russian super markets are also doing the same).

This is probably partly because a 1/2 EUR coin is still worth something (= can be used to buy numerous supermarket products), while a single US quarter is close to worthless. What item in a US supermarket costs under $0.25 these days?

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#163

Post by dsego »

AdamN wrote: post #137
dsego wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not familiar with Rossman but with german DM (drogerie markt) & Muller being well represented in my country (and I presumed other ones in Europe) for over a decade or more, I thought this concept had already been established in all of Europe.

In the US, a drug store is a DM with a pharmacy in the back. There are way fewer independent pharmacies in the US nowadays as 'drug stores' have taken over.

Things are getting more interfused all the time, like there is this store 'farmacia' where I live, looks like a pharmacy, sells pills, but you can't pick up prescriptions because it's not a real pharmacy. Then the national postal offices sell gadgets and trinkets, likely because sending actual mail is in decline, and package delivery is better served by private delivery services. Gas stations have even started selling bread because of a new law that prevents grocery stores and malls from working on most Sundays.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#164

Post by jdietrich »

maxerickson wrote: post #146
IneffablePigeon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Painkillers are sold in packs of max 16 tablets in the UK (almost always 500mg for paracetamol, 200mg for ibuprofen). In addition they must be sold in blister packs not bottles, and all shops will only allow you to buy two packets per transaction (mix and match, you can’t have 2x paracetamol and 2x ibuprofen). I believe there are some exceptions for prescriptions. Obviously you can still overdose by going to multiple…

What criteria do you use to evaluate that intervention? Which really means, how do you begin to estimate the actual amount of harm reduction that it provides? Are there lots of cases where someone tried to overdose but was saved by it 'only' being 16 grams of paracetamol?

The number of deaths due to paracetamol poisoning fell by 22% in the year after the legislation. There was no significant increase in suicide deaths by other means. We see similar results with interventions like reducing the availability of highly toxic pesticides or installing barriers on bridges.

Most suicidality is impulsive and transient, so simple interventions to reduce access to means of suicide can have very significant results. There's very little you can do to prevent a sufficiently determined person from dying by suicide, but most people who die by suicide aren't strongly motivated to die - they're just briefly overwhelmed by life.

https://www.bmj.com/content/329/7474/1076

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/saves...

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#165

Post by black3r »

tzs wrote: post #32
MBCook wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year or two ago my grocery store got rid of hand baskets. Now you can only choose between a short cart, a full cart, or holding everything in your arms. I hate it. They’re not bringing them back, I’ve asked.

Did they get rid of free plastic bags at checkout earlier? I ask because some Walmarts got rid of hand baskets. When they stopped providing free plastic bags at checkout there was a big rise in people carrying their purchases out in the hand baskets and then not returning the baskets. Those stores often decided to stop replacing the baskets. I would not be surprised if the same thing happened at other stores.

Tesco stores in Slovakia have the anti-theft alarm thingies on hand baskets and you can't leave the store without tripping the alarm... There are multiple solutions to every problem.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#166

Post by jdietrich »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #147
DavidPeiffer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is slightly ridiculous, IMHO: You can buy more if you want, just split transactions. And of course no-one stops you from buying a trolley-full of vodka and bleach. You can split transactions, but committing suicide takes effort, and a relatively significant rate of suicides are impulsive. For impulsive suicide, having a barrier or interruption can prevent the attempt. Something as small as a phone call interrup…

The impulse has to be to eat the tablets or whatever's on hand. Going all the way to the shop to stock up on tablets does not strike me as impulsive. So IMHO this restriction is an attempt at limiting the stock people have at home . Although I would argue this is none of the shop's business and, as far as I can gather, this is not a legal restriction.

It is a legal restriction and it has saved hundreds of lives.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK374099/

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#168

Post by dghughes »

dtgriscom wrote: post #30
freddie_mercury wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries have laws limiting the size of paracetamol & aspirin bottles to reduce overdoses & suicides. The UK passed a law in 1998 about it and saw suicides from overdoses drop 21% and liver transplants from paracetamol poisoning drop 66%. "Numbers of tablets per pack of paracetamol and salicylates decreased markedly in the year after the change in legislation on 16 September 1998. The annual number of deaths fr…

What are the limits? (Asked as a US guy who buys the 500 x 500mg bottles at BJ's.)

At Walmart I bought a bottle of 500 Aspirin and I've had it for over 10 years it may even be 15 years. I looked just now and see there are two pills left. I thought I was using too much at that rate.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#169

Post by OJFord »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #147
DavidPeiffer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is slightly ridiculous, IMHO: You can buy more if you want, just split transactions. And of course no-one stops you from buying a trolley-full of vodka and bleach. You can split transactions, but committing suicide takes effort, and a relatively significant rate of suicides are impulsive. For impulsive suicide, having a barrier or interruption can prevent the attempt. Something as small as a phone call interrup…

The impulse has to be to eat the tablets or whatever's on hand. Going all the way to the shop to stock up on tablets does not strike me as impulsive. So IMHO this restriction is an attempt at limiting the stock people have at home . Although I would argue this is none of the shop's business and, as far as I can gather, this is not a legal restriction.

I think the main thing is the blister pack requirement, you can't just unscrew the lid and down a bottle.

Limiting to two... I don't know, it has occasionally annoyed me (when I think I want to 'stock up') but I suppose there's just no reason you actually need more than that at once (other than self-harm or with a prescription) so meh why not if it has a small chance at stopping a few suicide attempts.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#170

Post by Symbiote »

daft_pink wrote: post #56

Are those coin locks really to protect the carts from the elements, or because Aldi doesn’t want to pay someone to haul them back and forth.

The main purpose is to encourage users to return them to the correct place in the car park, rather than leaving them in an empty parking space or the roadway, where they are likely to end up colliding with cars.
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