Ping: Laurie G. in CA

Hi Barbara. I, too, re-use cloth bags (make my own. Some times sell them) Last week at the grocers I brought my own bags. Told the checker that I had my own 'cause the plastic ones mated at night & spawned more by morning. She said that's OK & pointed me to the in-store recycled bin! It was lost on her

Nana, I'm laughing because all checkers must have been told the same thing! This morning I checked out at WalMart, using their bag (sells for 50c) telling the checker I had 'my' bag and she also let me know they have a recycle container as you come in the front door! I'm glad people recycle. I'm gladder that I re-use my own bag! Barbara in SC Happy that you make your cloth bags

I missed that news! I'll have to find out about it. In any case, I do have some re-usable bags but will probably need more.

Laurie G. in CA

There was some news about folks getting sick because the reusable bags are not cleaned and bad stuff from meat and stuff contaminating produce. Yuck. The ban is only for grocery and convenience stores. I reuse my plastic grocery bags for kitchen trash. I have a plastic can that holds them. If I am limited to re-usable bags I will then have to purchase new garbage container bags. If there isn't a solution for this than I don't see how anything improves. I will also have to launder the re-usable bags using our precious water commodity. A pretty awful thing in CA. I would think just using plastic laundry baskets that nest would be a better choice than fabric bags. I have a mess of those and use them to schlep a lot of stuff already. The would be easier to sanitize too. BTW, if you hadn't noticed CA lawmakers by and large are idiots. I think folks waste a lot more in other ways than with grocery bags.I heard there will be over 200 people fired in one bag plant in LA alone. Great in this economy. : ( Taria

"Laurie G. in CA" wrote in message news:i4sngl$u0h$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org...

As much as I dislike anyone telling me what to do (just ask my dh)...I think this is a really good idea. Our small town got a Dollar General store back in January. It's only been eight months and the shrubbery and roadsides are already blooming yellow bags. I live on a state highway and I really, really get tired of picking up other people's trash. Sherry

I agree with you about needing to use plastic bags to hold meat items. I re-use the store bags to hold a newspaper, drug items, and other "dry" things. I was also thinking about using the larger 3 gal baskets to hold the cold and meat things. Yeah, there are a lot of people in government who make the rules and do not think and reason things out. All towns and states have to put up with that type of thinking. Barbara in SC

Sherry I live on a corner lot a block from main street and many cars go by and drop off soda and beer cans, and fast food sacks for me to pick up. What is just as bad is where cars have parked close to a store with an outside trash can, yet they won't walk the 20 feet to deposit a dirty diaper or a bag with left over hamburger & fries. Barbara

I have bags the store sell for 50c, but I want to make some 14" square size cloth bags for when I am only buying a few items. Barbara

Here in France you either take your own bags or buy the recyclable varieties. This has happened here for at least 4 years, poss longer. Our local butcher, wraps everything in paper, so the meat doesn't sweat. I also have a pull along shopping cart for our weekly market and most traders now use paper bags which can be composted or recycled. Some stores use starch based bags so can be composted as well.

Janner

On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 22:21:57 -0500, Taria wrote (in article ):

I think by and large a lot of politicans are idiots.

Maureen

On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 23:18:32 -0500, Sherry wrote (in article ):

I here you. Every.single.bit of trash that people dump in our alley when they are walking from the convenience store to the large State office buildings gets blown into our parking lot/yard.

Not to mention all the beer bottles/cans that people like to drop on Friday and Saturday nights.

Just because you don't care what your neighborhood and yard looks like doesn't mean that I share your feelings.

Maureen

More shopping at stores that still use the plastic bags??? Fabric anyone?

Of course DH says that maybe paper bags will come back more. He prefers them to plastic.

Pati, > Can you tell I am pretty frustrated with the political situation in CA? = =A0lol

vTye_RnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com...

Guess I'm soooo lucky to live in Maine - after hearing the problems in other states! We have a Motto up here: Re-duce, Re-Use, Re-Cycle.

All the grocery stores have a sign at their enterance - "Did you remember to bring your re-usable bags?" And, to save your cloth bags, they do put meat items into small plastic bags before putting them into the cloth bags. We also pay-per-bag for our garbage -- BUT we also have a bin we set out on "trash day" that contains all recycle-able items (plastics, paper, glass bottles - anything with a recycle-triangle on it) .... and that gets picked up at no charge! Our city started doing that when the landfill (town dump) started to get full. The dump also has a re-use area where folks can bring items that they don't want to keep but are still in good condition. Any resident can go there and browse around and take whatever they want/need. My DH picked me up an old

Maine passed a "Bottle Bill" years ago - stores charge a recycle fee of 5 cents a can/bottle for soda/beer/alcohol bottles. When they're empty, you take them back to the store and get your nickle(s) back! There's always plenty of kids and adults who will go around picking up the discarded cans/bottles from beaches, public places & streets.... they can make some extra money that way. After several years, the soda companies started an expensive (millions $$$$$) campaign to get the law overturned so they wouldn't have to take ultimate responsibility for the containers..... It went to a ballot referendum and the voters by a huge margin voted to keep the law in place!!! Our streets/parks have been sooo much cleaner ever since.

Cannot comment (except in disgust) about those who ignorantly dispose of diapers..... or let their dogs do "their thing" without picking it up. (Maine has a poop-scoop law that requires dog owners to clean up and properly dispose of the stuff.) Most public rest stops have a "Pet Area" that has available plastic bags for pick up.

ME-Judy (now gett> Sherry I live on a corner lot a block from =A0main street and many cars g= o by

The town I live in was very small when I was in school and we used paper bags to line trash cans. After I was married I used to use dull needles to sew 4 layers of newspaper together for my trash bags. Also I have never had very much trash to throw out, even when there were 3 of us and visiting children.! Barbara

For those of us living in most of Europe, it's hard to understand why the US can't get with the program. Germany ran out of landfill generations ago. There's a law requiring food retailers to accept ALL packaging on whatever they sell, so every food store has containers near the door for paper, plastic and batteries. Most people do take the food home in whatever package it came in (although I have seen people remove things like pizza cartons and take the frozen pizzas home in only the inner plastic wrappers). But we pay according to the size and number of our trash bins, so there's a big incentive to recycle. Every neighborhood has recycling bins and/or a recycling center to accept all manner of stuff. Everything in fact except kitchen waste and certain plastics that aren't marked with the recycle symbol. and people with gardens are encouraged to compost. My WEEKLY trash after recycling fills one small bag. The truck comes round only every 2 weeks, so they save money on collecting trash too.

And what happens to the recycled stuff? It's sold by the ton to industry, to be turned into new plastic and cheap paper. the community gets the profits, which helps reduce our property taxes. Roberta in D, with 2 wicker baskets for shopping

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:35:15 -0700 (PDT), ME-Judy wrote:

Here we can put kitchen waste including meat, chicken bones etc. into our garden rubbish bin and it goes for recycling into compost for the garden. Our area has a newly constructed plant to deal with this.

We only have wheelie bins now thank goodness - the plastic sacks of old were much loved by seagulls and foxes, and everyone uses their own bags for shopping. The grocery stores all have their own cheap branded re-usable bags by the tills for people who have forgotten theirs.

In other shops where purchases were previously put in their own branded bags you are always asked if you need a bag. I always refuse one, but being a place full of holiday-makers in the summer they are inclined to make impulse buys more and haven't a bag with them.

I actually carry a couple of bags that fold up into tiny purses in my handbag 'just in case'.

Sally at the Seaside ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk

Roberta wrote:

I can fold one of the large store brand bags into my purse when I go shopping. I'm leaving now to go walking and shopping at WalMart. I go there to walk because the temp is the same and I can walk longer. I usually see a grocery item I need. Today it is peanut butter. Barbara

So how do you get this across to people that eat 'food' like Spaghettio's and othe prepared stuff . Folks don't know how to feed themselves much less take care of where they live. At least from what I see. : ( I think most communities in CA have to have a recycling program with reduced numbers of 'stuff' going to landfills. There still is a lot. Many plastics here just are not yet recycled. I suppose the larger areas we have help a but there. The bottle recycling program works in that you pay more for cans and bottles than they will pay you back. The extra monies they make is to go for more recycling. I think I heard that the politicians raided the extra funds for something else. The folks that do the 'picking' along the roadsides here tend to just go for the cans since they make the money. Glass and plastic not so much. People are by and large pretty wasteful. : ( Taria