A rant about plastic bags
 

A quick rant. I mean, are we supposed to carry our European-style mesh bags, or our Land's End canvas bags with us wherever we go regardless if we think we'll be shopping? Carry them 'just in case'?? On the way home from work I had to pick up a prescription for my antibiotic, some toilet paper and some shaving creme before the pharmacy closed. No time to stop home first to get my mesh bag. So, one plastic bag. Next door was the Chinese restaurant, I ordered some veg dumplings. Another bag. Then I had to go to the supermarket and get milk. Another bag.

Three bags total tonight. You just can't win. It's like digging a hole on the shore, no matter how much you scoop out of it the water keeps filling it up. I try to use them for garbage or for lunch, or for throwing out smelly leftovers (if any). But it's a losing battle, I have a HUGE plastic bag from 'Target' stuffed to the top with other plastic bags that I'm too conflicted to throw away.

I can't imagine why 3M or Dow Chemical or whoever makes these things can't also devise a way of recycling them. The raw material for new bags would be the old ones. I mean, who hasn't seen plastic melt in their life? They can't create a huge cauldron of melted plastic bags and make new ones from that? No, of course they can't. The molten bags leach toxins into the air. It's a vicious cycle. This planet is doomed to be engulfed in plastic bags and plastic water bottles...it's already happening.

^ they do add up fast. Luckily, many of the grocery stores here now have recycle bins specifically for plastic bags.

Oh? I haven't seen those around NYC- well if they can be recycled (and I thought those kinds of plastics could not because of the toxins they release) then that effort should be made all over the country. It should be promoted from the highest levels down. It's a disaster...plastic everywhere. Oy, when I was in India the last time the mountains of rubbish from plastic bottles and bags is just unreal. Even in our country, who hasn't seen trees and bushes with plastic bags all tangled up in them? Horrible.

I'm obsessing over it, but I feel like in such a short period of time we've caused such a damage to this planet.

I made a habit of leaving my reusable bags in the car. It wasn't easy. First, they kept getting left at the house. Then I put them by the door so I would remember to take them out to the car. Then they kept getting left in the car. I would be too egotistical to leave a cart full of groceries to go get them. Then I realized that I use them a lot to line the kitchen garbage can. I hate cleaning the inside of garbage cans... eeww! Now, my money doesn't go near as far as it did 6 months ago, so less shopping = less plastic bags and none of it matters to me anymore.

Well, I don't know if that was more of a rant or what, but maybe there's a couple of helpful hints in there somewhere for you. :shrug: :laugh:

Yes, they are my garbage bags too. I never buy 'Hefty' kitchen bags or whatnot, well I have one box under the sink but I don't use them. I line the bathroom pail with a plastic grocery bag, and I hang one from a knob on one of my kitchen drawers and that's what I use for garbage. If it is a garbage that might attract mice or roaches (this is NYC, after all :-P) then I press the air out of the bag and tie it up and chuck it. But if it's just non-recyclable stuff like the dry cleaning bags or whatever, I wait until the bag is at max capacity and then chuck it.

When my mom came to stay 2 weekends ago, she went to throw something into my kitchen garbage can (I also have the kind everyone has in their kitchen, lined with a bag, but mine never gets used) and I was like "DON'T THROW THAT IN THERE!!!!" She got the hang of how to live in my place quick. :nod:

there's going to be a tax on them in Australia so people are forced to use other bags and the plastic ones are going to be phased out. I know how you feel about them. when I was growing up my dad would make us take used plastic bags on our shopping trips even though it would annoy the check out person a bit. And if we didn't have enough we'd just carry the items in our arms. I used to be embarased by it when I was little but it's a lifestyle that's very achievable and I guess thats what the government is hoping for.

More & more cities are banning them. San Francisco was the first, and Portland will be soon to follow. I also recall hearing that Boston is considering it too.

unfortunately, I work in one of those places that hands out millions of plastic bags a year and to be honest I've seen a real change lately in people using their reusable/ethnic bags (mostly women do it to be fair, and mostly older people). To my of thinking, it only needs to take one industry giant to say no to ALL free bags and the rest will follow, you forget your bag, tough, get your shopping wet etc. As for remembering to bring your own, hey, it's all about training...the little ones from scratch (seeing mum and dad bringing them) and re-training the older ones (you wouldn't forget to put out the rubbish on a weekday, for collection now would you...probably not). I just wish someone would make a major move, forget charging it does b-all. I've quizzed customers as well and theyr'e ALL in favour of something being done.

I'm always telling clerks "I don't need a bag" and they act so bothered by it. One cashier started to give me a plastic bag for a small item and when I told her I didn't need one, she threw the bag away- *SOB*!

I always forget my "earth" bag too. I'm going to put it in the car this morning when I go to work so that it will be there, dammit.

OMG. The same exact thing happened to me once. The clerk whipped out a bag for my buttered roll, and I said sunnily "oh, no thanks. I'll just carry it, I'm only going around the block". He made one of those tooth-sucking noises (how do you spell that? "tsk"?) and rolled his eyes and angrily stuffed the bag into the garbage!! I was as horrified as you were. Obviously, me not wanting a bag ruined his day.

The challenge for me and my mesh bag is that I live in a heavily urban area (Brooklyn) and work in an even heavier one (NYC), so I don't drive. If I did drive then sure I'd stash those mesh totes in my car. But as a pedestrian and subway rider, I'm not sure how to integrate a man bag into my life. I love the idea of banning the little beasties altogether, and not only bags but those clear hinged plastic containers they pack food in too! Whatever happened to a nice paper box from the bakery? Whatever happened to picking out a pastry and they wrap it in waxed paper and out it into a little paper bag? Whatever happened to the Chinese joint packing your dinner special into a tin container with a fitted cardboard lid? Those clunky plastic containers are horrible. Paper bags and paper cartons are easily recyclable, and I used those tin containers over and over again.

our local wal mart said they were gonna start giving the customers a choice again of paper or plastic~ i also have a huge bag full of plastic~ it seems that is all they use where i live, i mean everywhere~
i do try to recycle them sorta by reusing them in my daycare~ but other than that i have no idea what to do w/ the excess in my garage~

Well, I work as a cashier at Rainbow Foods, a local chain here in Minnesota, and we have a plastic bag recycling bin by the door at all of our stores here. Me personally, when I work late (We close at midnight) and I'm tidying up the register area, I take all the plastic bags that are laying on the floor or arent on the racks and put them in the recycling bin NOT the garbage. :nod:

I would have bitched if they threw away a bag like that in front of me. Random people are morons and jerks.

I said something like "Well that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it???" She wasn't very bright.

I recycle the plastic grocery bags I get. I sue them as my trash bags (I live in a condo and trow garbage out daily) - I also use them to pick up the dog poop outside. So, I justify my use of them that way. In other words, that is less actual garbage and poop bags I have to buy as well as one less non-environmentally friendly mesh bag or tree killing paper bag I have to buy/use.