Plastic Bags

If you have a drawer full of plastic bags from previous shopping trips, are you allowed to reuse them when you go shopping?  


BTW: This ban is stupid


The ban is NOT stupid.  It should just have fewer exceptions & loop holes.

In a sense, plastics are just as deadly to our environment, as DDT was.


I'm on the not stupid side. Government should be doing a lot more to eliminate wasteful packaging.


So I'm totally against single use plastic bags and I really do try to limit my use of plastic utensils, etc. However, I have always reused plastic bags from the supermarket as garbage bags. If I don't have plastic bags from the supermarket to use for my garbage, I will buy plastic bags. Therefore, what's the advantage of a plastic bag ban?  Am I missing something? (And this is a totally sincere question.)


cubby said:

Therefore, what's the advantage of a plastic bag ban?  Am I missing something? (And this is a totally sincere question.)

What you’re not taking into account, I think, is that relatively very few people do what you do with plastic bags.


DaveSchmidt said:


cubby said:

Therefore, what's the advantage of a plastic bag ban?  Am I missing something? (And this is a totally sincere question.)
What you’re not taking into account, I think, is that relatively very few people do what you do with plastic bags.

Yeah, if there were a critical mass of people who did any form of recycling,  our waste issues would be under a lot more control than they are. But the fact is that there is no critical mass, which is why recycling doesn't really do much. Waste of time and energy, for the most part.

Systemic environmental issues like these have to be tackled at the governmental level for them to be effective. Instead, we've allowed industry (and like minded politicians and well-meaning, but wrong-headed, environmentalists) to place the onus on consumers and make it our personal problem and responsibility. Another failure for the left.


cubby said:
So I'm totally against single use plastic bags and I really do try to limit my use of plastic utensils, etc. However, I have always reused plastic bags from the supermarket as garbage bags. If I don't have plastic bags from the supermarket to use for my garbage, I will buy plastic bags. Therefore, what's the advantage of a plastic bag ban?  Am I missing something? (And this is a totally sincere question.)

 I also reuse plastic bags for garbage — and kitty litter disposal. 


The purpose of the plastic bag ban is to prevent additional plastic carry out bags from being introduced to our waste stream.  Reuse of those bags we have already is strongly encouraged.  By all means reuse those you have.  These bags are usable for a variety of purposes in addition to holding purchases carried home from the store.  I  reuse plastic carry out bags for all sorts of things:  as trash bags, for kitty litter, to hold needlework, to carry books in wet weather, to carry wet items home from the beach/pool, etc.  The only ones that become single use are those which break (usually at the handle or bottom) and those which become soiled with items such as melted ice cream or meat gravy.  




Moving forward, the only plastic bags that will become single use ones might be the ones I purchase for garbage.


Remember when we used to line garbage pails with newspapers and old paper bags??

Pity almost no-one reads 'real' newspapers these days...  (I'm in a complex where we can't compost kitchen scraps because the local wildlife (which are encouraged to roam freely throughout the complex, day and night) would dig up the gardens and destroy the compost bins. We have enough trouble as it is with waterfowl nesting in our garden beds, and under our decks. Worm farms are as useless for us as compost heaps would be) 

I recycle bread bags for rubbish now (don't just save them for lunches),  


Having realized the environmental disaster of eternal plastic waste, I'm totally against plastic. We've drowned ourselves in plastic waste.

However, paper bags may not be a savior, there being serious environmental issues with it. Consumers should also be discouraged from using one-time paper bags. A 25 cent fee per paper bag to motivate consumers to being in and use reusable bags?

The issue with paper:

In 2011 a research paper produced by the Northern Ireland Assembly said it "takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag."
Unlike plastic bags (which the report says are produced from the waste products of oil refining) paper requires forests to be cut down to produce the bags. The manufacturing process, according to the research, also produces a higher concentration of toxic chemicals compared with making single-use plastic bags.
Paper bags also weigh more than plastic; this means transportation requires more energy, adding to their carbon footprint, the study adds.

Plastic or paper?


BG9 said:

Plastic or paper?

 The obvious answer is neither.  I bought a couple of reusable bags back in 2013.  One of them has a big hole in it but I use the others every day.


Klinker said:


BG9 said:

Plastic or paper?
 The obvious answer is neither.  I bought a couple of reusable bags back in 2013.  One of them has a big hole in it but I use the others every day.

 What do you put your garbage in?


Klinker said:


BG9 said:

Plastic or paper?
 The obvious answer is neither.  I bought a couple of reusable bags back in 2013.  One of them has a big hole in it but I use the others every day.

Which is what I do. Aldi is good in that they don't provide any bags unless you pay for them. You go to Aldo you'll see most using reusable.


cubby said:


Klinker said:

BG9 said:

Plastic or paper?
 The obvious answer is neither.  I bought a couple of reusable bags back in 2013.  One of them has a big hole in it but I use the others every day.
 What do you put your garbage in?

I just dump it directly into the 96 gallon bin. My garbage men don't take items out one by one. They attach the bin to some mechanism which then tips container contents into the truck. But sometimes garbage sticks and remains. You don't do that?

Besides, even if I use garbage bags, the use of 13 gallon bags is trivial compared to the many smaller bags in stores. 

I do see a need for one time plastic for meats and loose produce. At times meat, especially poultry, packages leak and contaminate the reusable bag.

We reduce what we can.


cubby said:


Klinker said:

BG9 said:

Plastic or paper?
 The obvious answer is neither.  I bought a couple of reusable bags back in 2013.  One of them has a big hole in it but I use the others every day.
 What do you put your garbage in?

Compostables go in the composter.  Recyclables go in the recycling.  What's left after that goes into my garbage can which  I line with a large hefty bag each week. Honestly, there's not much in there most weeks.


BG9 said:



I do see a need for one time plastic for meats and loose produce. 

 I bought a set of these Earthwise Reusable Mesh Produce Bags a while ago.  They work pretty well for most items although there are occasional things like cilantro that still need a single use plastic bag.  I agree about meat, that seems to be unavoidable.  There are probably things that could be done on the producers end, though, to make it more eco friendly.


Klinker said:


BG9 said:


I do see a need for one time plastic for meats and loose produce. 
 I bought a set of these Earthwise Reusable Mesh Produce Bags a while ago.  They work pretty well for most items although there are occasional things like cilantro that still need a single use plastic bag.  I agree about meat, that seems to be unavoidable.  There are probably things that could be done on the producers end, though, to make it more eco friendly.

 Nice bags. Very good for loose fruit. We'll order them at the next Amazon spree.


Klinker said:


cubby said:

Klinker said:

BG9 said:

Plastic or paper?
 The obvious answer is neither.  I bought a couple of reusable bags back in 2013.  One of them has a big hole in it but I use the others every day.
 What do you put your garbage in?
Compostables go in the composter.  Recyclables go in the recycling.  What's left after that goes into my garbage can which  I line with a large hefty bag each week. Honestly, there's not much in there most weeks.

 So you don't have a  kitchen garrbage container that is lined with a plastic bag?


cubby said:
 So you don't have a  kitchen garrbage container that is lined with a plastic bag?

 Cubby,

   Even if we used can liners, that's one bag instead of many small bags.  Also, trying to shoot at someone for not being perfect when they are trying to reduce plastic bag usage accomplishes nothing.  I have used my own reusable bags for years, but I am far from perfect or plastic free.  Does that mean I should not reduce where I can?


FilmCarp said:


cubby said:
 So you don't have a  kitchen garrbage container that is lined with a plastic bag?
 Cubby,
   Even if we used can liners, that's one bag instead of many small bags.  Also, trying to shoot at someone for not being perfect when they are trying to reduce plastic bag usage accomplishes nothing.  I have used my own reusable bags for years, but I am far from perfect or plastic free.  Does that mean I should not reduce where I can?

 Totally not "shooting at you." Rather, I am sincerely trying to understand the best system for reducing use of plastics.


cubby said:


Klinker said:

cubby said:

Klinker said:

BG9 said:

Plastic or paper?
 The obvious answer is neither.  I bought a couple of reusable bags back in 2013.  One of them has a big hole in it but I use the others every day.
 What do you put your garbage in?
Compostables go in the composter.  Recyclables go in the recycling.  What's left after that goes into my garbage can which  I line with a large hefty bag each week. Honestly, there's not much in there most weeks.
 So you don't have a  kitchen garrbage container that is lined with a plastic bag?

 The wet stuff goes in the compost, the containers go in the recycling.  We don't eat meat much but, when we do, those wrappers go in a plastic bag.  I have a hefty liner in there but most of the stuff in there is dry.  I change it when it gets funky.


and now we read to not wash clothes, or as little as possible,  because that releases Plastic...  time to go all cotton?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48908413

"Every time we wash our clothes an average of nine million [plastic] microfibres are released into the environment," she tells BBC News. "The way we wash our clothes affects this, as well as the way our clothes are made - but the more we wash our clothes, the more microfibres are released."


cubby said:
Moving forward, the only plastic bags that will become single use ones might be the ones I purchase for garbage.

At some point, this issue will need to be addressed in some way, also, but the answers aren't as readily apparent.  BTW, I do occasionally end up with large bags and reuse them to line my garbage can.  Just this week I had a B&H bag doing reuse service that way.  But we have got to figure out how to minimize single use plastic if we care about the environment in the long run.  


Ah. To think that only a few decades ago “ plastics were the future”. Good times.


I still have “single use” plastic bags made in like 2005.  Maybe they’ll be worth something.


Five decades ago. Time flies.


This will cause people to buy more Trash bags which are bigger and thicker thus causing more damage to the environment but kudos for trying to take a step in the right direction. I suppose fast fashion is next with the way they're clogging up landfills


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