Bought or brought?
I remember reading about how filthy those reusable bags get for most people. Since most do not wash them.
If you forget the bag, go home and fetch it.
This gives you a while to be annoying and frustrated, which helps you remember next time.
If you just buy a new bag, it’s such a non-issue that you never learn.
Store them in the car…
You gptta just be stubborn as hell. Refuse the bag, take your cart to the car, and chuck it all in
i don’t mind bringing the cart/handbasket back in to the store. i just don’t want to fill my pockets with bags.
All depends on how many of those bags I’ll need.
If I’ve got a lot of grocery bags at home, then I’ll go with the reusables, since I’m stocked on trash bags. But if I’m running low, I’ll get a fair amount of plastic bags since I’m able to keep my trash output down to a couple of small bins; there’s one under the kitchen sink and one under the bathroom sink.
I fully believe the anti-backpack attitudes among todays youth is the work of big plastic/paper bag.
There are tons of businesses near my work (next to a middle school and a high school) that have a posted no backpacks allowed rule on the door. Mostly because of shoplifting, and sometimes there is a pile of backpacks outside the door and a bunch of kids inside when school lets out. But there are probably many reasons they don’t want to carry a backpack when they don’t have to.
Well that’s stupid. Hope they go out of business.
Shops here have a bunch of empty cardboard boxes near the register for the folks forgetting their reusable bags.
The wine monopoly in Norway (yes, that’s a thing) does that too. All the empty wine boxes are left by the register so you can stack your booze in those.
I try not to leave them in the car, but it’s a struggle sometimes.
I only leave them in the car and bag everything at my trunk. this way I know they are there and I don’t have to walk around with some dogshit company’s branding lies on their cheap af cloth bags designed to rip when you put 4 lbs of food in it.
I if forget one I own it and carry everything in hands. Or more often take it to the car in a shopping cart, dump everything inside and worry about taking it to my apartment later.
Honestly i wonder why people don’t do just that
If you don’t get plastic bags from grocery shopping what do you use for your trash cans?
You can buy dedicated trash bags. They’re thinner, so the amount of plastic material per bag is a fraction of that in shopping bags.
Sadly, I now have to buy bin liners. And “compostable” (not really, can’t go in the compost bin) pet waste bags for scooping the litterbox. I do note I use fewer than I used to with the grocery bags, usually emptying the small can into the large and reusing the bag.
Pretty sure composting pet waste is a bad idea anyway. So not really sure what the benefit of being completable would be
Biogas facilities could theoretically compost them along with other kinds of organic materials.
I doubt it ever gets sorted to that point but anyway.
If you are putting it in your general waste it probably isn’t no. I meant for garden composting.
If you do compost dog shit in your garden you should probably only use that compost for non-edible plants.
We do have garbage sorting including organic trash, but dog poop bags are not allowed for some reason. It ought to work if the bags are biodegradable but the guidelines mention that it might contaminate the batch. The actual plant that processes it states that dog poop is allowed in small amounts, which it obviously is. I think the garbage collection company just doesn’t want people to mix up the non-biodegradable bags or risk that people store shit in their kitchen bins or something. Better safe than sorry.
Anyway, all our remaining unsorted trash, including dog shit, is used as fuel for central heating, so at least it doesn’t go to waste and doesn’t pollute.
Is that burning it yourself or a district heating kinda system? Our non recycled waste is incinerated for power generation and they use a bunch of scrubbers to keep the pollution down somewhat. The bits that don’t burn go to landfill.
They are apparently bringing out food waste bins soon for composting but I will just continue to compost food waste in my garden compost bin. The bins they are giving out for it look alright though so I might make use of those rather than a bucket by the back door as an intermediate storage before it goes in the compost bin.
We have district garbage collection and district heating all in one company. The chimney is filtered, so supposedly only water (and ashes) comes out.
I use the food waste bin for stuff like meat and eggs which I don’t want on my own compost, because it attracts rats. I mainly compost vegetables and fruit myself. I sometimes drive my hedge clippings to the recycling station just to get rid of it. They have a really large compost area and also allows me to bring back their mulch from previous years on the same trip. It would be better to have space to do this composting myself, but my house is in the center of a city, so I simply don’t have the space.
See, that’s where the “reduce/reuse” kicks in. If you were going to buy trash can liners, and now you don’t, that plastic bag is effectively a freebie. No extra environmental impact.
Paper Bags > (Reusable) Plastic Bags Trader Joe’s knows what’s up
It’s great because they’re recyclable! Now let’s stick all these plastic stickers on them to prevent that…
I have these nylon ones that scrunch into these tiny little bundles that I keep in my bag all the time. Can’t leave them behind without also leaving my wallet behind.
This is the Way.
If you don’t carry a purse or anything, you can tuck one in a pocket.
How do we know if these are actually a good thing for the environment? It seems like it’s at least possible the excess waste offsets the benefit.
How much material and energy goes into making those thin plastic grocery bags? They’re apparently extruded as a tube and then crimped and cut, Compare that to a woven polyester bag.
The whole “reduce, reuse, recycle” thing: I’m a woodworker, I don’t buy 600 grit sandpaper for rubbing out finishes, I use paper grocery bags. So I get shop supplies for free and use less plastic. Plastic bags mostly get re-used as trash bags, only the ones that are very torn get recycled. I don’t buy purpose built trash bags.
If you HAVE a re-usable bag, use it. Sure. Stacking up re-usable bags that you don’t take to the store IS worse.
How much material and energy goes into making those thin plastic grocery bags?
its where they end up. They last >100 years.
I can’t find the video now, but a couple years ago there was a science creator who broke down the overall environmental cost (co2 production, manufacturing chemicals, microplastics, etc.) of producing the materials needed to make the various bags, manufacturing, transportation, and time to break down/end of life impacts. The single use plastic bags were less impactful than any reusable bags by far. This can be increased by reusing the single use bags as you would a reusable bag before using it for garbage like you do. Only paper bags were marginally better than single use plastic, but even that is unsustainable as it is still a single use item, and produces all kinds of chemicals during the pulping process. Not to mention only ~50% get recycled, leading to more forestry to supply materials.
All that to say you’re right. The 3 R’s are the way to go.
My personal pet peeve are the “environmentalists” who rush out to buy new “environmentally friendly” options rather than using what they currently have until it needs to be replaced. Particularly since most of the organic replacements don’t last as long. Yes, the plastic version will end up in the landfill regardless, but they could have reduced their overall impact by 5 to 500 organic whatevers in the meantime. Eco-consumerist nonsense. /rant
I recently realised that I don’t even need to use up my dwindling supply of former grocery now mostly garbage bags for smaller garbage cans around my place. Previously, I would remove the bag from the bin, tie it up and drop it in the main garbage, usually after emptying it because otherwise it would be too full (and I’m in a condo with a dumpster, so timing garbage pickups isn’t an issue).
My new method is to just grab the whole smaller bin and dump the contents out into the main bin, reusing the bag unless it got destroyed since it was last emptied. My main bin is my kitchen bin, so the others are mostly getting dry things anyways. It’s the adhesives that can mess up the bags now, though if it’s just a piece of sticky paper, could just leave it stuck to the bag for a while if it isn’t interfering with other things going in.
I’ve been using fancier store bags (sometimes the reusable plastic ones, sometimes the paper ones that already look like gift bags just with the store name instead of Elsa or whatever) as gift bags, mostly because buying special packaging for gifts is just a waste, especially because the kid only cares about what’s on the bag until they can get at what’s in the bag, then it usually sits somewhere maybe holding a bunch of gifts for a bit, probably getting ripped before it gets folded flat to be used in the future, though I’m sure some people just throw them out.
There hasn’t been a plastic bag ban in my area, so I do dispose of them. I even use an office size trash can as a kitchen trash can. I’m a bachelor, kitchen scraps and cat litter will smell intolerable long before I fill a kitchen bag anyway.
In my case, I largely use store plastic bags for trash bags since they have way less plastic than a regular kitchen trash bag.
You can get frames that go over cabinet doors and such that hold them open.
That’s opposite where I live. Garbage bags are flimsical thin bags, while grocery bags are durable heavy material so you can carry 6-7 bottles of 1.5 l. without it breaking.
The shitty little “reusable” bags that wear out after a few uses are def worse than the micron-thin plastic were overall.
My state banned plastic a while back and I will way, i don’t see bags stuck all over the bushes, roadsides and trees anymore so that’s a plus.
I got a dozen or so insulated Wegmans large cooler bags that have lasted 5 years so far. (6 for each car) They’re double-stitched, hardcore zippers no signs of wear. I suspect their realistic lifetime is my and my wife’s death. It’s not like the kids are going to pine over the bags or anything. Now the real question, assuming they’re evergreen (jury is still out) is 25-35 years of waste reduction from a 0.001 disposable plastic bag actually net negative against 12 large textile bags with thick plastic liners, zippers, and insulation?
The bags probably host $200 in total and I’m quite sure I could buy a lifetime supply of disposable plastic bags for $200.
Not seeing plastic bags stuck to a tree every quarter mile feels good. I think reusable is probably the right answer, even if it’s not a huge ecological win.
If you have a reusable bag, it uses more plastic than like 100 individual bags, but it produces less waste that floats in the ocean or decays in a landfill.
Lived in my house for a few years and bought like 3 plastic bags in that time. We also took a few from my partners family when we moved in so we did start with some.
Stats show a vast drop in how many plastic bags are used just by charging a tiny bit of money for them. Plus by having a cost now it makes sense to make them better.
It’s a complex question to answer. But, basically reusable plastic > reusable cotton > plastic > paper
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/sustainable-shoppingwhich-bag-best/
The article briefly mentions this, but having lived in states with plastic bag bans, and states without - well drive through the countryside and count all the plastic bags in ditches, trees, streams. Paper might be more intensive to produce, but the lingering effects of plastic bags are being underestimated I think.
I always feel it’s so dishonest comparing the energy requirement between plastic and paper. Yes, paper takes a lot to produce, planting them, machinery for harvest, processing and so on. But energy is practically infinite with solar power. And while alive the trees are working as carbon capture, and when the bag gets thrown on the ground it puts the carbon back into the soil. I wonder how many paperbags have killed fish and turtles compared to plastic ones.
“energy is practically infinite with solar power” No it isn’t.
On Earth’s surface, sunlight is intermittent. Tall objects such as trees interrupt it, you’ll get to produce a small fraction of the power you expect for a few hours in the morning and evening and full power for about 4 hours in the mid-day. You need to figure out how to use it while you’ve got it, or store it for later. That gets bulky and expensive real quick.
Considering our current energy consumption, we need to capture about an hour of the Sun’s energy being intercepted by Earth.
There’s 8760 hours in a year, so if we can intercept one 8760th part (~0.0114%) of the energy thrown our way. We can power our current demand levels, sure it would require some massive batteries
But it’s not impossible to think the tech being able to develop into energy mining from the surface of the ocean. Which covers 70% of the entire surface and only experiences shade through clouds. Assuming solar could capture 10% of the energy concentrated at their location, we’d basically have energy covered for decades if we plastered 1% of our surface with it. Or 1.43% of the surface of our oceans.
That would allow us to consume 8.7 times more energy than today.
For reference, the silicon cells we use today capture in the ballpark of 15-22% of the sunlight they receive. So getting to an average of 10% is possible.
You know you can just place the solar panels out of the shade of trees right? If done right you’ll be producing decent power from a little after sunrise to a little before sunset, and of course much more midday.
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I live in a forest, so no I can’t. My property is shaded by trees I don’t own.
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Even if I could, solar panels work best when aligned perpendicular to sunlight, and fixed solar panels spend most of the day oblique to the light. Any panel that doesn’t move will give you a bell curve of power throughout the day. Mine do. I can go out there, align them with the sun with a little sundial thing, half an hour later they’re making 10% less.
Don’t mistake me as anti solar. I have solar panels in the sun making power right now. They’re useful, but they have limitations.
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I know it’s obvious, but shouldn’t it be: plastic > reusable cotton > single-use plastic > paper
