Abandoned Shopping Carts

“Free shopping cart with any purchase!” That seems to be the attitude of some customers, and thus we have the sad case of the Abandoned Shopping Carts. They line the streets, forlorn and useless eyesores. They can be found in the most unlikely of places, from woods and rivers, to roofs and sewers.

Of late, in my solidly long-time middle class neighborhood, I’ve noticed more Abandoned Shopping Carts than ever. It looks like a convention of homeless came through and left their vehicles. Many municipalities have recently enacted ordinances to deal with this menace, such as a $50 fine imposed on stores when their ASC’s are impounded. Walgreen’s has been installing cart systems that will not let you take the carts off the property – the wheels literally lock-up. You can steal an Aldi’s cart, but it will cost you a quarter.

I just feel something is so wrong about this. From issues of homelessness, theft, urban blight, and callous store managers who ignore the problem. Even deeper, with my limited observations, I see this as a metaphor for an economy people have lost confidence in.

High gas prices are declining somewhat as demand goes down as people change their driving habits. Food prices are high, so many just push the stuff home in the cart, saving the gas, and apparently not pushing it back on the next visit. I am no sociologist, or economist, but I take my omens where I see them.

Recently I’ve start taking photographs of the Abandoned Shopping Carts I encounter. I’ve yet to capture any gems, but I will share them here, and hope you will too, and hope, too.


-ramon

ASC pics in LA
ASC pics on Toronto
field identification guide to stray shopping carts

Two carts?
That person must have bought ALOT of groceries.

FYI, Ramon - if you look at the handle, you can usually find the grocery store; call them with the location of said cart. Most stores have some kind of system to round them up and take them home (we're talking about $500-1000 dollars just walking away, so it's worth their time) I have done so with success in my neighborhood.

I posted this link elsewhere, but I suppose it's pertinent here: Do you put your shopping cart away?

Two carts? Try five, all in one immediate area. Three are predominately displayed on Lawrence Ave starting 6 weeks ago, one block away from the Jewels where they belong (at Cumberland). In all that time a manager or employee hasn't noticed? I won't bother to call because they obviously do not care, unless it's to the corporate office. But then, what would I do with my time?

Freedom for the carts of the corporatists! Viva la charrue!

-ramon

People do this in Evanston all the time. I would round them up and take them back, or toward the store if I wasn't going all the way there. And people would look at me like I had stolen them.

I noticed that more and more Evanston stores are installing the wheel-lock system; you're right, leek - it's a real problem in the area. When I found one abandoned in the baseball field outside our school, I called the Dominick's and they came and got it the same day.

Yup, it's a pain to call - but more and more I'm finding that my vocation as a stay-at-home mom is to be the lone wheel, squeaking shrilly into the darkness...

Mhays wrote:FYI, Ramon - if you look at the handle, you can usually find the grocery store; call them with the location of said cart. Most stores have some kind of system to round them up and take them home (we're talking about $500-1000 dollars just walking away, so it's worth their time) I have done so with success in my neighborhood.

I posted this link elsewhere, but I suppose it's pertinent here: Do you put your shopping cart away?

Not to derail Ramon's ode to abandoned carts, but...

argh!

I know! The cart corral can be five feet away and some people just can't be bothered...

Everytime I'm at a big box store, looking around the parking lot at all the wayward carts, I'm, like, "are you frickin' kidding me?"

Hi,

If I am waiting to take over someone's parking space and they are delayed by putting the cart away, then I offer to take the cart over. They're happy and I have my parking space fairly promptly.

In my other life, there was a hard currency (dollar) grocery store on the ground floor of the building I was in. They had exactly two carts. I would grab one to do my shopping, then take the cart upstairs to unload. More often than not, the manager would send someone to accompany me to make sure the cart returned promptly.

The large Vietnamese grocery store on Argyle is also very careful to monitor their carts. If you are not parked in their lot, then an employee follows you to the car simply to get the cart back. We usually tip him a dollar for this troubles.

Regards,

Strangely, the only store where I routinely am asked if I don't mind passing off the cart I'm returning to another patron is Trader Joe's; happens more often than not.

I think that it is less a measure of the economy as much as it is pure laziness on the part of many people these days.

Where I used to live outside of Cleveland, taking a shopping cart away from the store would lead to being stopped by the local police department and questioned.

When I was a kid, I'd visit the grandparents in Edmonton, and I always found their system of depositing a quarter to get a shopping cart and getting it back when you self-returned an effective way to get people to return carts. There was an interesting contraption on the handlebars, you'd put the key from the front cart after returning it, into contraption on your cart's handlebars and you'd get your quarter back. Putting a quarter in the first place "unlocked" the cart from the front cart.

I always wondered why it wasn't implemented in the U.S. - I chalked it up to some likely absurd litigation that said it was infringing on a person's rights to shop without depositing a quarter or something...

They do quarter-deposit carts at Aldi's and the Marketplace on Oakton - I have friends who refuse to shop there for that reason alone.

I have to admit, when Sparky was less portable, and I was faced with the option of toting a screaming baby all the way to the store and back, at times I abandoned my cart in the lot. I hoped that at least some frugal person would snap it up rather than wasting an employee's time - which I concur, is a stupid use of a valuable asset.

I swear, this stopped once he was old enough to make the trek back to the store under his own locomotion.

The Cermak Produce store at 4234 North Kedzie also uses the quarter-deposit carts. I don't know about their other stores.

Abandoned Shopping Carts are a bane to the etailing industry. Amazzon don't like it when you fill up your virtual cart and don't pass the check out line.

-ramon

Christopher Gordon wrote:

Mhays wrote:Everytime I'm at a big box store, looking around the parking lot at all the wayward carts, I'm, like, "are you frickin' kidding me?"

Dateline - Northbrook

Returning from a bout of shopping at Sunset Foods and once again declined their (in my opinion) over-the-top convenience of drive-up car-loading (two things I'll keep doing until I can't - loading my own groceries and taking the stairs).

I approach my car, say, 15 feet from the cart return. The driver (yes, of a black SUV) of the car next to me pushed his cart right up behind my car, kissed my bumper, lifted his one bag out, hopped in and drove away. All just before I arrived to find out why his time was so much more valuable than mine. I glared.

The woman who waited for his spot jumped out after parking and consolingly said "That was rude!" She offered to take his cart in for me.

Two people, very different behavior inside of 60 seconds. Humans continue to astonish me.

big tax return

-ramon

What I hate about shopping carts scattered around is that it is my car doors that suffer the dings from the Chicago wind blowing them into my innocent car.

Mhays wrote:FYI, Ramon - if you look at the handle, you can usually find the grocery store; call them with the location of said cart. Most stores have some kind of system to round them up and take them home (we're talking about $500-1000 dollars just walking away, so it's worth their time) I have done so with success in my neighborhood.

I posted this link elsewhere, but I suppose it's pertinent here: Do you put your shopping cart away?

Interesting thread. M, you can't mean that a cart costs $500-1000--or can you? I have no idea what they cost. Anyone know? How many carts does it take to add up to $500? One? Ten? Fifty?

I rarely encounter a wayward cart in the parking lot of the Jewel at Ashland and Wellington. Reading a lot of these posts makes me feel lucky about that. On the other hand, the Ashland Whole Foods has a very explicit sign by the elevator to the parking garage, saying it's simply not allowed to take shopping carts inside that elevator and up to your level; instead, please ask a store employee for help with your groceries. Nevertheless, I routinely see shopping carts left in the garage. Apparently there are people who know enough to buy organic produce yet are illiterate.

riddlemay, you and I shop at the exact same stores. And I'll concur that I almost never see stray carts at the Ashland/Wellington Jewel. however, I do see a near constant stream of Jewel employees going out to collect carts, which may have something to do with it (and also may be, in my opinion, one of the most unrecognized difficult, unpleasant jobs around, given Chicago weather and the way people drive in that parking lot).

Carts in the Ashland WF garage make me insane for the simple reason that their garage is already the Seventh Ring of Hell. there's a REALLY good reason why they don't want carts in that garage.

I read that as a cost somewhere, but doing some research indicates that the large, heavy-duty carts most grocery stores use, without frills, are about $180 - not including shipping. One companyI found was in Cleveland, another in MA - so $500 for one cart, including shipping, and bells and whistles like custom handles with your name on it, may be a little high - but probably isn't too far off. A definite investment.

Mhays wrote:...doing some research indicates that the large, heavy-duty carts most grocery stores use, without frills, are about $180 - not including shipping. One companyI found was in Cleveland, another in MA - so $500 for one cart, including shipping, and bells and whistles like custom handles with your name on it, may be a little high - but probably isn't too far off.

Thanks for doing the legwork on this, M. Whodathunkit? (Well, I guess you did.)

sweetsalty, see you in the Seventh Ring of Hell.

Mhays wrote:I hoped that at least some frugal person would snap it up rather than wasting an employee's time - which I concur, is a stupid use of a valuable asset.

I disagree here. What may seem a waste of time to you may be valued work to the employee.

While I despise people who leave their carts in situations that block parking spaces in busy lots or where they can roll into cars, I'm untroubled by people who leave their carts safely in places other than the designated cart corral. I am equally unconcerned about people who fail to put return nonperishable merchandise they have decided not to buy to its proper slot.

Yes, this means that the store's employees have to pick up after them. However, these chores are largely done by hourly wage earners, so the workers don't lose by it. Perhaps it raises the cost of groceries a bit because the store has to devote more staff hours to these jobs. Given how few jobs are available to unskilled workers, though, I don't grudge it.

As a teenager, I worked in a library. One of my jobs was reshelving books. If everyone had put away the books they were finished with and the library needed only to reshelve circulating volumes, they absolutely would have needed fewer library aides. (Also, we greatly preferred that patrons not reshelve books themselves, because they so often returned them to the wrong place.)

I also worked in a retail store. Although I never much cared for straightening shelves and restocking disarranged merchandise, I got paid by the hour, so when the boss told me to stay longer and clean up, I didn't feel it was a waste of my time. It was definitely preferable to being sent home early because there was nothing to do.

Although I almost always NOW put my carts in corrals, etc...
when my babies were little I was SO happy to find an abandoned cart next to my parking space, and would often on purpose park next to an abandoned cart, so my sore back wouldn't have to carry said baby or babies (twins) to the store. (which I really really really tried to avoid shopping with at all costs, but sometimes it was just UNAVOIDABLE.....)

It was so nice to be able to stash them right into the cart and roll the cart in....

Glad those days are past....

I got a crash course in the lives of shopping carts as a sophomore in college. I was in San Francisco as a team leader for an alternative spring break. On our first day there, I had to go grocery shopping for the week's meals. I walked to the grocery store because it was an idyllic spring day, the store was only about 1/3 mile away, and we didn't have a car. My plan all along was, after shopping, to push our groceries in shopping carts back to the church where we were staying and then to walk back to the store to return the empty carts. I had never before removed a shopping cart from a store's premises, but my plan seemed simple, practical and honest--I couldn't think of anything wrong with it.

So, a friend and I got to the store and bought enough food to feed a dozen college students for a week. We pushed two teeming carts out of the store and into the parking lot. I went first and made my way toward the sidewalk to begin our walk back. The moment the front wheels of my cart touched the crack between the parking lot and the sidewalk, the entire cart collapsed to one side. My friend rushed over to help me stabilize the disabled cart and to retrieve the groceries that had fallen to the ground. We spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out what had happened, including trying to push the second cart out of the lot and having it also collapse. Our brains were not in the right place apparently--we never arrived at a connection between where we were in the lot (the exit) and the carts collapsing. It didn't occur to either of us that the store could actually be trying to prevent us from leaving with the carts.

We were finally saved by a homeless man who was pushing his own teeming cart down the sidewalk. We were so absorbed in figuring out what was wrong with our carts, we didn't notice him until he started talking to us. I don't think I'll ever forget his words. Very plainly, he said, "You girls are stealing the wrong carts. Use those over there." He pointed to a couple of stray carts just off the sidewalk down the block from the grocery store. The liberated carts were clearly from another store, and the man proceeded to explain the magnetic lock system on the carts from the store where we had shopped. Very embarrassed and utterly amazed by our first encounter with shopping cart technology, we promptly retrieved the empty carts from down the block and transferred our groceries. In just a few minutes, we were on our way.

I'm ashamed to say that I don't recall returning the collapsible carts or the ones we finally got away with. Perhaps we figured that the carts we secured were displaced entities anyway... I've not since tried to remove any shopping carts from property, and I always return my carts to corrals.

happy_stomach:

Funny story. Although I've heard of carts locking up when they reach the perimeter of the shopping area, I've never heard of them collapsing. That seems a little mean and unnecessary. As if it's not enough to achieve the goal of keeping the carts in the lot, the store has to also dump the groceries on the ground.

aschie30 wrote:happy_stomach:

Funny story. Although I've heard of carts locking up when they reach the perimeter of the shopping area, I've never heard of them collapsing. That seems a little mean and unnecessary. As if it's not enough to achieve the goal of keeping the carts in the lot, the store has to also dump the groceries on the ground.

Now that I know more about shopping carts, am less naive, I believe the system I experienced in SF was just the magnetic cover that locks the cart's wheels. I'm guessing that the locking was the cart manufacturer's primary aim, but it had a destabilizing effect, which was magnified because our carts were so full. It seemed really mean then.

Sculpture made from abandoned shopping carts.

Our new condo building has shopping carts you can use to take your groceries from the heated garage up the elevator to your apartment (ahhh, what a luxury in a Chicago winter). The local cops once called to say they saw one of the building's carts for sale at a local garage sale and the janitor walked over and retrieved it. Probably saved enough money right there to justify the additional expense of putting the building's name on the cart handle.

gastro gnome wrote:Returning from a bout of shopping at Sunset Foods and once again declined their (in my opinion) over-the-top convenience of drive-up car-loading (two things I'll keep doing until I can't - loading my own groceries and taking the stairs).

Really? I shop specifically at Sunset because they unload, bag and place the groceries in the car. I guess i am lazy

iblock9 wrote:Really? I shop specifically at Sunset because they unload, bag and place the groceries in the car. I guess i am lazy

We all draw our own lines in the sand. I understand why some people would want this convenience. For me, it seems a bit much. My response when I heard about the service was and continues to be, "No thank you, I can do that for myself."

But it's a nice draw for people like yourself who value the service. Use and enjoy!

Does that guy still get the train of shopping carts pulled behind his full size tricycle? He used to hang out at the intersection of North and Central. He used to get around a dozen hooked together and drive around.