Are you for or against plastic shopping bag bans?

[tzolkin]

I’m pretty impressed that so many of you reuse all your plastic bags. After a large grocery shopping trip if I wind up with one or two bags that don’t have holes in them, I consider myself lucky.

Perhaps most people don’t look at the bags or notice, but I used to reuse them as liners for our car puke buckets when my kids were little so I am in the habit of always looking.

I’m not overly concerned about a ban. I think people just get used to things and don’t like change, but we would all live just fine without plastic bags if we had to.

I spend time in Rwanda each year and plastic bags have been illegal in that country for quite a few years. It is incredibly clean and people still manage to get everything done without plastic bags.

 

[Colleen27]

My mother's church collects plastic grocery bags to make these sleep mats or blankets for the homeless.

As to why they are soliciting for the bags, I think it's more of the increase in homeless population than less people using the bags. Seems the less people use the bags, the more bags the cashiers use to pack your stuff if you do still use them. I said earlier (or in a similar thread on another forum) the last time I was in Walmart, I bought 9 items and while doing other stuff waiting, I didn't notice that the cashier put each of my 9 individual items in a double plastic bag. Walked out of there with 9 items and 18 bags to reuse or dispose of since those 18 bags will last a long time along with my other fantastic collection that I already have.

Fortunately that has not been my experience in groceries around here. There is more double-bagging than there used to be because the current generation of plastic bags seems unable to hold more than 3 or 4 canned goods before tearing, but it hasn't yet reached the point of absurdity. But these same groups, a year or two ago, stopped accepting bags because they had more than they could store so maybe people just got out of the habit of dropping them off.

 

[Imzadi]

After a large grocery shopping trip if I wind up with one or two bags that don’t have holes in them, I consider myself lucky.

Perhaps most people don’t look at the bags or notice

I just put a piece of packing tape over the holes in the seam. Works great. That way, I can still put drippy messes in the bags. Otherwise, it would be way too many plastic bags wasted and not even reused once for garbage.

 

[piccolopat]

I'm wondering what people think about disposable diapers. While very convenient, there is no way to reuse them and they are a growing problem in our landfills because they don't biodegrade. I really think the plastic bag ban is only one tiny piece of a much larger conversation needed to reduce the amount of waste we generate that doesn't easily biodegrade.

 

[tcufrog]

I do a hybrid of reusable and plastic. The stuff that could contaminate my reusable bags go in disposable plastic and the rest goes in my reusable bags. I use my reusable bags for everything from dry cleaning to dropping off donations at the local charity thrift shop. I love the heavy duty canvas bags I got for free at Sur La Table.

I used to get deliveries from Hello Fresh but stopped because I thought the packaging was wasteful and it didn’t save time. I now get two meals a week delivered from a local company that makes the meals locally and delivers them fresh so all I have to do is heat them up. The containers can be recycled. The ice packs are reusable and if you leave the insulated tote out to be picked up on delivery day, they donate a meal to the local food bank.

 

[Imzadi]

I do agree that there are more logical places for bans to start - around me, a lot of restaurants are phasing out styrofoam in favor of either paper containers (like old-fashioned Chinese restaurants use) or reuseable plastic, and more and more are moving to an on-request model for straws rather than just dropping them on the table for everyone. Those are both lower-hanging fruit, I think, with fewer potential downsides than plastic bag bans.

NYC currently has a ban in effect against Styrofoam takeout containers. Although, very low end restaurants who have economic hardships, like Chinese restaurants, can still use up their existing supply of Styrofoam containers for a year or two.

At the beginning of this year, (I think,) a ban has also been approved to get rid of the clear plastic takeout (clamshell) containers.

And yesterday, the NYC mayor has announced he's working on enacting a law against plastic silverware, in a move toward biodegradable utensils instead. I've eaten at a place that gave us disposable wooden forks.

 

[lsyorke]

I've always wondered about contamination in reusable bags...seems I was correct to worry about it.

https://lluh.org/sites/medical-cent...ross-Contamination-Reusable-Shopping-Bags.pdf

 

[kdonnel]

And yesterday, the NYC mayor has announced he's working on enacting a law against plastic silverware, in a move toward biodegradable utensils instead.

Another example of political stupidity.

Biodegradable utensils fall in the commercially compostable category.

If you toss them with the trash, they remain in the same form for just as long as a traditional plastic utensil.

To biodegrade they must be commercially composted.

Unless this law requires and puts in place a mechanism for getting all those utensils to a commercial composter, it is just a feel good pat my self on the back waste of money and does NOTHING to help the environment.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I'm wondering what people think about disposable diapers. While very convenient, there is no way to reuse them and they are a growing problem in our landfills because they don't biodegrade. I really think the plastic bag ban is only one tiny piece of a much larger conversation needed to reduce the amount of waste we generate that doesn't easily biodegrade.

Diapers are one of the things I draw the line on. I just find the cloth ones unsanitary. (I also use paper towels to wipe the gunk out of my kitchen sick, and I'm fine with plastic wrapping for keeping medical supplies sterile and lots of other exceptions to the "no disposable anything" extreme.)

I'm a big proponent of the "reduce" part of the equation. I think doing some is worth it, even if we can't do it all. So even though I'm OK with disposable diapers, I do other things - like remember my reusable shopping bags, take a refillable water bottle to work, forgo straws in restaurants, and recycle more than I throw away.

I don't think this is an all or nothing scenario, where we have to be perfect (or even that any decision is perfect). We just have to do a little better, each in our own way, until the technology catches up with better solutions.

 

[cabanafrau]

Another example of political stupidity.

Biodegradable utensils fall in the commercially compostable category.

If you toss them with the trash, they remain in the same form for just as long as a traditional plastic utensil.

To biodegrade they must be commercially composted.

Unless this law requires and puts in place a mechanism for getting all those utensils to a commercial composter, it is just a feel good pat my self on the back waste of money and does NOTHING to help the environment.

True because landfills by design are not intended to aid the process of biodegrading anything.

 

[Floridaman999]

Wonder when they'll ban plastic water bottles.

 

[scrapquitler]

I don't care very much either way, but if they ban the plastic grocery store bags, I'm going to have to start buying small garbage bags for kitty litter and for in our waste baskets in the bathrooms, laundry room, office, etc.

Oh, and I have some of those reusable bags that I bought at the grocery store, I seem to have problems with the stitching on them ripping. If it comes to a plastic bag ban, I won't be buying any more of those reusable ones, I'll sew my own. I suppose that will be more of a hassle for the cashier to bag my stuff, because those won't stand up, they won't have loops to go on the bagging rack, etc. But that won't be my problem, will it? LOL

 

[PollyannaMom]

Oh, and I have some of those reusable bags that I bought at the grocery store, I seem to have problems with the stitching on them ripping. If it comes to a plastic bag ban, I won't be buying any more of those reusable ones, I'll sew my own.

I actually think that's going to become a side business for a lot of people - sewing special ones to match people's interests, etc.

 

[cabanafrau]

Wonder when they'll ban plastic water bottles.

Sometime after they've pumped the Great Lakes dry?

 

[Imzadi]

Another example of political stupidity. [...]

. . . it is just a feel good pat my self on the back waste of money and does NOTHING to help the environment.

I'm sure he's been told. It probably doesn't matter to him. As long as it SOUNDS like a good idea & that he cares. That's what matters. We can't get into it here, but he's been gunning to move up to the TOP of the political chain.

 

[AurumPunzel]

Fortunately that has not been my experience in groceries around here. There is more double-bagging than there used to be because the current generation of plastic bags seems unable to hold more than 3 or 4 canned goods before tearing, but it hasn't yet reached the point of absurdity. But these same groups, a year or two ago, stopped accepting bags because they had more than they could store so maybe people just got out of the habit of dropping them off.

In the UK, supermarket plastic bags used to be very high quality, especially the first generation used from the 1970s until around the 1990s, because of the usage of low-density polyethylene, which was a British innovation by Imperial Chemical Industries, so the thinner US-style bags made from HDPE didn't arrive until around the 1980s, but didn't become widespread until well into the 1990s, which was when the quality of the bags started to go downhill, though the vest bags in the UK were still better than the US ones, which reduced the need for the dubious double-bagging practice that often bewilders us Brits going to the US. Ironically, now every single supermarket bag in the UK has gone back to LDPE, and with a thickness that's almost equivalent to California's statewide ban compliance spec (2.25mil; 57.15µm).

I spend time in Rwanda each year and plastic bags have been illegal in that country for quite a few years. It is incredibly clean and people still manage to get everything done without plastic bags.

Well, Rwanda and other developing African countries have a thriving textiles industry, and at one time, when plastic bags were first imported, the low cost of manufacture led to the textiles industry struggling to shift the bags that were once popular, particularly as Western-style convenience became popular. However, poor waste management of the bags was a huge issue, so it's unsurprising that the ban led to the textiles industry thriving again. However, it does highlight the issues of waste management in those countries vs the West, which is far worse.

 

[longboard55]

The biggest land fill item today is not straws or diapers, its Amazon. And a lot of their packaging is plastic.

 

[AurumPunzel]

The biggest land fill item today is not straws or diapers, its Amazon. And a lot of their packaging is plastic.

I've always said that packaging needs more focus, because while we can reuse the plastic bags, packaging is almost never reused, and the issues with bans is that they often keep using plastic bags as a scapegoat, while the bigger plastic waste issue is massively ignored.

 

[pixiedustedme]

I'm in favor of the ban. They were banned in my city a few years ago and a lot more people bring their own bags now.

Some people won't change & will just buy them, but this is a long-term issue, and the younger generation coming up cares more about the environment. They will be more amenable to this kind of change.

 

[pixiedustedme]

I'm wondering what people think about disposable diapers. While very convenient, there is no way to reuse them and they are a growing problem in our landfills because they don't biodegrade. I really think the plastic bag ban is only one tiny piece of a much larger conversation needed to reduce the amount of waste we generate that doesn't easily biodegrade.

We used about 3/4 cloth diapers and 1/4 disposable diapers when my son was a baby. Cloth diapers are easy to use and actually help to potty train a child faster, since they can better notice when they're wet. We reserved disposables primarily for travel, as they're easier to deal with when away from home. But at home, we never felt like cloth diapers were difficult at all.

Diapers are one of the things I draw the line on. I just find the cloth ones unsanitary.

They've been used by babies for thousands of years, so they're certainly safe.