Plastic bag ban?

In Ireland over the last few years I noticed that people bring their own bags to all stores and pack up their own purchases in those bags.

They look like this:

Superquinn green bag

Plus, if you don't have your own bag, the store does have these bags to sell you (usually a Euro each) and if you don't want to buy them, they will give you a plastic bag AND CHARGE YOU FOR IT !!!

I thought that was an excellent idea and so I bought a load of the bags and brought them back to the U.S. with me.

Now I fold up a couple of these bags in my own handbag every day (very light to carry) and if I drop off for groceries on the way home, I have Star Market/Stop & Shop pack my stuff in these bags.

A while back I noticed Star Market now have their similar bags that they sell for one dollar each. They are not as user friendly as my bags that I bought in Ireland but they are at least a start.

The only way to get people to be more environmentally friendly and stop depending so much on throwaway plastic/paper bags is to CHARGE them money each time they require one.

Plastic bag article

Many of the grocery stores here in Canada are selling plastic tote boxes (rectangular and smaller than a laundry basket) for lugging groceries out to the car (I wouldn't want to walk to the store carrying one -- they'd be too awkward). I have 3 and can usually jam everything into them. As an incentive to forgo plastic one retailer (Zehrs) gives you a ticket for a draw for $25 worth of groceries whenever you bring your own bags/totes. My mom likes to pack Xmas and birthday presents in canvas bags to save sending wrapping paper to the landfill (djjd uses colour comics which are totally recyclable ) so I always have a canvas bag or two on hand.

Did I read somewhere that corn starch in plastic bags makes them MORE attractive to wildlife? Our cat used to always lick the grocery bags if I brought any home. (Sound familiar anybody or am I just making this up?)

I'd like to hear more about those tote boxes Tai Chi...

I just like that idea of boxes.

Here's a website showing the kind of totes I mean (designed to fit in the new style of shopping cart): www.greenbox.com

You can buy carrying straps for them too.

I really like that.

I'm going to make note of the dimensions of a shopping cart here next time I go to the supermarket.

We've already got plasitc bins with good grips to lift it. When we unload the car Mr. Tea or I will carry 5 or 6 bags at a time anyway. Same difference in weight.

Seems like a permanent solution with something a lot of us already own.

Bags? My average grocery bill is $140 and I carry everything out in my hands. Plus I walk home, screw the car. I grocery shop in other states, as well.

We can buy woven bags at whole foods for a buck each., many times you can nab free canvas bags at random events. And, of course, you can reuse the paper bags - more easily than the plastic ones, too.

Did anyone look at my links? There is commentary there on certain compostable bags making regular thicker plastic unreclyclable...

Fishin replied to someone about the compostable plastic bags. Wasn't it you? Those bags disintegrate into plastic particulates. It saves clutter in the landfill, it breaks down plastic bags blowing around the landscape, it saves marine animals after X number of months. But, the plastics are still in the environment and the energy is still used to manufacture them.

Finally got to my first Ikea a couple weeks ago--they charge you a nickel each if you want a grocery-store-size plastic bag--a certain economic disincentive there. They also offered a much larger, much heavier reusable plastic bag with handles for a buck. But it seemed like a not very user-friendly odd size.

My local Star does have canvas bags for a buck too, but they're really small, maybe half the size of a standard plastic bag--don't look like they'd be much use.

Now here's an idea about what to do with the bags: Over Xmas I was in NYC and went to the Cooper Hewitt, which had its design biennial show up (maybe still there). One of its themes was user-made design, and one of the magazines maybe ReadyMade) they featured had an article about how to make a quite spiffy messenger bags by recycling those bags that they home-deliver newspapers in--they used NYTimes bags, which are a nice sky blue. Grocery store bags look to me like they're probably the same material, so it might very well work with them too. They collected a bunch of the bags, and some waxed paper (Star sells it).Put the waxed paper on an ironing board, lay out bags in overlapping layers, with the next layer at right angles to the one underneath. Put another layer of waxed paper on top and iron over them--I forget the iron setting, but it's probably low heat--do some experimentation. The heat fuses the bags together. Keep fusing layers until it seems thick enough--I think it was like 4 or 5 layers, maybe more. Figure out your pattern (make a template of thick paper, I guess) and cut your material to size. Leave a piece equal to the width of the side on either side of your front-and-back pattern. Fold it up and iron the sides so that they fuse together, making them double thick. Get enoubh cotton webbing, belt width to be your strap, and cut slits in the side and bottom to thread it thru. Voila, your messenger bag--theirs had kind of a neat nubbly texture from where the layers of bags fused with each other, an unidentifiable, kinda vaguely high tech look.

Make one for all your friends--no need for Xmas shopping next December.

There is probably less plastic in your bags than in the packaging of most of the individual food items you buy. This seems like attacking the problem from the wrong direction. At any rate it's better than cutting trees down for paper bags.

No, it wasn't me. Entirely different issue relative to compostable bags and regular plastic (forgive me, I am terminolically indisposed) in the same chamber...

tiny articles, check 'em out.

I do sometimes do it, but try to keep it down, the copying of whole articles, re copyright questions. Copying just a clip and doing all the link stuff, making a comment as a starting sentence or paragraph... is a pain in the butt, but I do that sometimes. On some of those old land use threads it would take me more than an hour, and that's after I picked out articles. Letting aside architecture, when I post links I am not usually tossing froth, on purpose anyway.


Many skip links., such as my recent ones on plastic bags. Oh, well.

I should reword an entire article in my own words? Whatever.

I've learned to check Walter's links... I usually learn from them.

Osso, I did look at your first link. It talked about what I was talking about - I thought. Didn't check your second link.

I'm being grumbly, ignore...

I do try to buy items with as little packaging as possible.
In the produce area, I don't understand why people put bananas let's say, in a plastic bag....they're in a nice self containted bunch already! Ditto with things like sweet onions, I buy maybe 2-3 large ones, why do I need a bag for that? You put them all together on the check out belt.

It annoys me when I see things like water companies packaging water in smaller and smaller units. like now they have this I think this 6 oz. bottle marketed to moms for their kids....zoom pack or something.

I really do try to make sensible choices based on that.

Yep those StarMarket bags are not as good. Poor quality and the straps get all smooshed and bite into your hands after one use. The bags I got from Ireland are very sturdy and quite wide when opened out. They were very deceiving from my initial glance but when I first used them, I was amazed at how much I fit into one. I could fit almost as much as a large paper bag with handles - you know the ones? Plus they are easier to carry.

Anyhoo, guess you know I am a big fan of these bags. While it is easier for women to carry them around with us at all times (folded up and stuffed into our regular bags), guys think "I won't be caught dead bringing my own stinkin' canvas bag-yokey around with me all the time". I thought the same thing about Irish blokes but you know what? On my last visit I saw cool young guys with a couple of these bags stuck under their arms as they went into the local market or local store for a few things. The message got across!

I actually don't remember how much it costs to get a plastic bag but I do know that, once, when I forgot the canvas bag and dropped into a shop for some fruit, I asked for a plastic bag and I got "looks" from the store clerk and the other shoppers! I had to smile.

Well, I'd be against banning the plastic bags overall. While there may be plenty of good reasons for limiting their use, I use them for picking up doggie poo when I take the puppy on walks.

If the bags are banned entirely I'd just have to buy some other plastic bags to fill the need and the other bags available are pretty much all of a heavier plastic than the shopping bags are.

Sounds like everyone will be heading to Pflugerville to do their grocery shopping...

Is there a way to make this post pfunnier?

What's goin' on in PF-lugie-ville?