OT: Plastic bags.

Paying for bags will encourage people to reuse their bags or find alternates. Most people have little incentive to save the bags or reuse them now because they're free. How did you dispose of trash/ garbage before they had plastic shopping bags?

Elizabeth

This would cost me a fortune.I always seem to leave my canvas bags in the other vehicle. But my local book store loves the bags... Barbara

Or, better than that, make a string bag to carry stuff in! I made one on Wednesday and it's *perfect*. I've always meant to recreate the excellent string bags made by my blind Nanna, so I bought three balls of cheap crochet cotton and set to work. I started with a 6-chain ring and went on from there. LOL! I only needed to frog a few times (made it about six inches too long by not paying attention) and now I've got a great string bag of which Nanna would be proud. I'm going to make one for Mum and another for my DMIL with the other two balls.

For anyone who's interested, there's lots of free string bag patterns online: just google to find them. ;-D

My thoughts exactly - although I prefer the square-bottomed paper bags. We use those for our garbage and they are great. It seems silly for me to spend money to buy bags made of plastic to throw garbage into - and the paper is fairly quick at decomposing as well.

So - I use my paper bag twice AND I have 3 or 4 reusable shopping bags in the car as well.

MelissaD feeling smug I guess :)

Paying for bags will encourage people to reuse their bags or find alternates. Most people have little incentive to save the bags or reuse them now because they're free. How did you dispose of trash/ garbage before they had plastic shopping bags?

Elizabeth

I bought and paid for plastic garbage bags. I suppose before they were available I probably used paper bags, but frankly I don't really remember.

I was strictly talking about saving bags from winding up in landfill, not the cost of the bags.

What I would love to see would be a campaign by markets asking people to recycle grocery bags. As it stands now, few people even know they have a container to hold returned bags because I've never seen anything about it anywhere. I happened to notice it quite by accident.

It would also be great if newspapers would run ads encouraging people to use the plastic wrappers used for home delivery as pooper scoopers. That's what I do.

Lucille

We've had stores here (California) taking .05 off your bill for every bag of your own you bring in and reuse for several years now. The past year or so grocery and other stores are all selling the inexpensive canvas bags for shopping. I've seen big containers by the doors where you can leave your plastic shopping bags and they will recycle them for you.

Several of my local Raleys/Bel Air stores (same chain) now also have signs on the doors as you enter stating "Did you remember your bags?" because a lot of people aren't in the habit yet of bringing their canvas bags from the car into the supermarket.

There are always people who will make the effort - recycling, conserving water, not littering, etc. and those in the world who don't care about any of that. Hopefully it's not just breaking even between the 2 types

- the planet needs more of us to spend some effort on even simple changes to help the environment.

MelissaD ...whose kids get cranky because I recycle EVERYTHING we can at home - every scrap of paper, plastic, etc. and make them dig stuff out of the garbage can if they don't!

"Barbara" wrote

Hopefully people will realise that it is better to spend a couple of

A couple of other places plastic bags are welcome: our local Public Libraries, who provide them for patrons to carry things home in. And the Off-leash Dog Park. They have a box especially for them, since there is always someone who either forgets a bag or needs more than they brought.

Dawne

I wrap my garbage in newspaper, so my bin consists of a plethora of neat little paper parcels. We recycle as much as we can, so our recycled bin is always brimming, while the garbage bin is usually less than half full. DS washes out the bin with hot suds each week to prevent smells etc and we don't use plastic bags at all.

The one thing I did find them useful for was tracing dressmaking patterns, but I was recently able to buy a bolt of sew-in interfacing for only $5, so that'll last me a lifetime of pattern making.

Our local library has recently started selling bags for $1. These bags are made from recycled plastic fabric and they fold into a pocket, rather like a quillow, and zip up to pocket-size.

For transporting meat, we usually have the Esky (portable cooler) in the boot of the car for that. If not, DH will ask for a discarded carton from the supermarket to line our canvas bags. This is usually sufficient to keep the leakage out of the bags, but a thick layer of newspaper would do just as well.

We recycle all our newspaper so that would be counter productive and kill trees. My opinion is that you can't win. What's good for one thing is dreadful for another.

Lucille

That is exactly right. I can recycle paper, glass and plastic "curbside". Makes life easy. I can take the plastic bags I do get to the grocery store to be recycled there. Now that it is spring, I start composting again. For years, I barely fill one barrel most weeks with 2-3 bags of "containers" and paper. Fortunately, my shredded material can go down in plastic bags. But if they change that rule, I'll start throwing that in my covered compost heap and buy some blood meal to make it decompose faster.

Cheryl

Cheryl Isaak ( snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net) writes: (snip)

Why do you have to wait until spring to compost? I throw all my stuff into my composter all through the winter. I keep a bucket in the garage for day to day collection, and then when the bucket if full, I tramp to the composter through the snow. Jim.

I bought 10 Safeway bags about 20 years ago and am still using them. They don't look as good as when I bought them but I don't care. I throw them in the washing machine and hang them out on the line to dry. I think I've even put them in the dryer once or twice. They're not a fashion statement, they're grocery bags. If I buy meat, I use one of the plastic bags that hang back by the meat/vegetable sections. At Winco, where I do 99% of my shopping, I get a 6 cent credit for every bag that I use. Safeway gives a refund but only 2 cents a bag. I can't afford to shop at Safeway anymore anyway, so rarely use them there unless a sale on something I normally use catches my eye when I go in to refil prescriptions. Oh, and to bring this back to a slightly "on topic" thread, the Safeway bags are also great for carrying stitching projects or yarn! That's why I usually only have 6 or 7 bags in the car, even though I bought 10 of them. :-)

Liz from Humbug

Bin is too far away from the house to be bothered getting suited up to do it. Open pit is too likely attract undesirable vermin

Since recycled newspaper is not likely to be turned into the quality of paper for which they kill trees, you're better off wrapping garbage in it so that your landfills aren't preserved for all time.

Elizabeth

I was thinking of having some made rather than buy the ones sold at the Safeway or every other place that is adding bags to their inventories. They must be made at one maker, except for the store designs and colours they seem to be all the same layout and everyone charges the same price.

I keep forgetting to take them with us when I take dad to the store, even when they are sitting right in front of our noses. Something else is, without having 12-20 cloth bags doing a proper monthly shopping spree never leave enough bags. Or else they are not big enough to hold any bigger type item, by having bag custom made lets all the problems adjusted to one's individual likes and shopping needs, like fitting dad's walker.

Just recently, I had a very pleasant crochet-fest. I hadn't done it in years and suddenly felt The Urge. I made two lovely lacy tops for my Mum and daughter, a bonnet-that-looks-like-a-tea-cosy for my DSGD and several really useful string bags for myself, my Mum and my Ugly Sister. The string bags are every bit as good as the excellent ones my blind Nanna used to make: they're easily foldable to pocket or handbag size, but can stretch to accommodate the largest items, such as cereal boxes.

I often wonder why you don't see so many of them around, since they're so much stouter and resilient than the supermarket 'canvas' bags.

NB. the ones we get here in Oz are utterly *not* canvas - they're made out of some dreadful recycled stuff with seams that rip apart if you put the slightest stress on them. I got sick of mending the rotten things!

You might like these reusable bags - they're made from recycled materials, very inexpensive and fun designs. I have one of the bigger ones with sections for things like wine bottles and I take it with me everywhere.

Great bags. Loved the paper dolls!

Dianne