In Austin, TX we've outlawed these kinds of bags. All grocery store bags are required by law to be sturdy enough to be reusable. This results in a few different things:
- Bags are heavy enough to not get blown away in the wind
- Half of the time, the bags are made of paper instead, meaning they're recyclable and (presumably) at least partially biodegradable
- The plastic bags that do exist are larger, robust enough to be brought with you to the store again and again, and at least at HEB they cost 25 cents, which discourages people from getting them unless they actually need them
Finland has similar, sturdy bags. It was a real shock coming to Canada, where they use the flimsiest POS bags. If I'm not paying attention, I get about 2-3 items per double-bag.
This really seems like a weird glitch in the algorithm:
1) The plastic bag line in Excel is too damn high. We need to lower that cost
2) Order cheaper, thinner and crappier bags
3) Now we need to double-bag everything, and a bag can only handle the weight of a single chocolate bar
4) Customers use five times more bags than they used to
5) The plastic bag line in Excel is too damn high. We need to lower that cost
Where I am the thin bags are quite strong, but all the cashiers are forced to double bag anyway because of that one time it breaks and the customer gets mad. I have to just go along with it instead of bothering them.
When they did the plastic bag ban for grocery stores in California, I immediately went out and bought a case of those thin ones to stick in my car.
They're far stronger and more reliable (even with the overall poorer quality control, which I believe causes the occasional breaks you refer too, easily remedied by conservatively under-filling) than even the best paper bags they're replacing. The handles on those paper bags require such delicate, special handling, and if there's any wetness, well, I'd better have a cart, because I'm not making it to my car no matter how closer I parked.
The case of 1000 takes up very little space in the trunk, lasts me essentially forever, costs way less than the mandatory 10 cents per bag the stores are now required to charge, and, more importantly, is far more sanitary than reusable bags.
It is enough of a challenge to shop for fresh, relatively healthy food and having it last a worthwhile length of time, without worrying about cross-contamination from the last shopping trip.
Sanitary? Are you sticking uncovered pieces of raw meat into the bag? Everything in the store already comes in a package, except possibly produce, which I'd hope you're washing before you eat it anyway.
I don't know where you shop, but I've had plenty of packages (especially food packaged by the store) leak, and even if the ones I bought didn't leak, I often discover dried or partially dried residue on my package from a leak from somewhere else.
My concern isn't so much that I'm at greater risk of a food-borne illness (although there is that, and it's a greater worry now, with the increase in antibiotic resistance driven by driven by agriculture) but of the food spoiling earlier than necessary. This is especially a problem with the produce that you mentioned.
Is there any evidence that merely "washing" produce helps at all with cross-contamination, from a food-borne illness perspective? I imagine it would, if one were to do scrub it with warm, soapy water for at least 20 seconds, but does anyone actually do that? I have never in my life seen that done.
I believe the best practice is just not letting it ever touch raw meat in the first place.
Actually, yes, I absolutely would also have a sanitary issue with eating salad off of panties that had been used to hold raw meat that had merely been tossed in the wash. (Othersie, panties or other clothing are a strawman).
As for my plates, those go in the dishwasher, which uses both a chlorinated detergent and boosts the water temperature to kill bacteria.
I'd surmise that such treatment of nylon or even cotton would reduce the lifespan of those bags. What's worse, I'd have to buy a significant number of them to make sure I had enough on hand for shopping and to run a full machine load when sanitizing them. Good thing that's just not going to happen.
In the early 2000s when I was a grocery sacker, many customers would ask to get their items put in a paper bag and then into a plastic bag so that their paper bag had handles.
I'm so glad that we're seeing a shift to reusable bags and, hopefully, a culture of reusability.
I wouldn't be too proud of yourselves. There is debate over the relative environmental impact of plastic, paper, and reusable shopping bags. If you jump to the conclusion that plastic bags are the worst, it's probably because you haven't researched enough.
I've always thought the debate was in terms of energy required to manufacture the individual bags. In terms of recyclability and sustainability doesn't paper win out? The stuff literally grows on trees on farms
From what I've read, all of the types have different tradeoffs. The thinnest plastic ones technically have the smallest carbon footprint because there's less weight to ship around, the materials are easier to acquire, etc.
My personal reasoning is that there are lots of other (more significant) ways to combat climate change, but there's no other way to stop whales from choking to death on plastic. Then again, I could just be more emotionally affected by the tangible images of plastic pollution than by the more abstract notion of carbon footprint.
It's changed over time. 30 years ago, paper recycling wasn't mainstream and paper bags were made from Amazonian forests.
And even with recycling, you have to account for costs including not only energy but also chemical pollution caused by manufacturing process.
And then there's the question of which items get re-used. The reusable bags haven't proven to be much of a win because not only do they cost more in energy, materials, and pollution to create, people still forget them at home and buy new ones each time.
When I was a retail cashier between 2000 and 2007, the store I worked at offered both paper and plastic, but we were told not to ask and to just bag plastic and if a customer wanted paper, they would have to specifically ask for it. We were told it was because plastic bags cost a fraction of a penny, while paper bags were about 7 cents, and they didn't want to waste money on paper bags for customers that honestly didn't really care.
For a long time, the default in many grocery stores in NYC (where the typical method of getting your groceries home is on foot, a bag in each hand) was a paper bag (for strength and structure) inside a plastic bag (for handles).
We use paper bags at our retail outlet, they're more expensive and suffer catastrophic failure vs cheaper plastic which is, well, plastic (stretches first usually).
You have to take more care with paper (people are lazy) and it costs more from sustainable sources (people are miserly).
My buddies and I went to Austin on a motorcycle trip and one of our bikes broke down and we had to go to an auto store for a few small parts. When we asked for a bag to put the items in to transport them to other bike and they said "we don't have bags" we started laughing and were floored when we realized that they did not in fact have bags.
Most places didn't stock paper bags either, which we would of gladly paid for. We got used to it during the week but it was some big culture shock for us. Great for locals, infuriating for travelers.
I can certainly see how it could be frustrating to be without a bag if you need to transport your items on a motorcycle (though you were on a motorcycle trip and no one had a saddle bag they could put the things in?). Extending your experience to 'travellers' at large is a bit much. I'm from one of the dozens of other American cities with a plastic bag ban(yay!) so I think I would be quite non-plussed were I traveling in Austin. :)
I've never been to a grocery store that didn't have some kind of bags, and to be honest I've never bought enough things at once from a retail store to warrant a bag, but I can see how that could be a problem in certain situations
Bag levies are a simple and effective solution. Here in the netherlands (and other European countries) for example you are not allowed to give away free plastic bags. That significantly reduced plastic in the north sea: https://uk.reuters.com/article/oceans-pollution-plastics/eur...
I go to Austin now and then. It gives me hope for the future when I see the organic hemp reusable tie-died bags. Amazing how many plastic bottles, plastic packaging, plastic garbage sacks, and plastic tableware can fit into those bags.
Everyone who wants plastic can just drive to Manor, TX and do shopping there though. Possession of the bags isn't actually outlawed, the stores just can't give them to you in city limits.
-Plastic is recyclable. Why would you think it's not?
-Besides that, paper bags are made up of (dun dun dun) plant material. Which means CO2 is being brought into the equation.
-The energy required to make a paper bag versus a plastic one are still neck and neck.
https://ecomyths.org/2014/05/27/myth-paper-bags-are-greener-...
I'm not saying plastic bags are better than paper, but they're not really worse, aside from the fact that people suck at disposing of them. You need to get society better at recycling. It's not really the bag's fault.
IIRC plastic bags are not recyclable, you cannot meaningfully put them in the recycle bin[0], and the plastic bag collection bins outside of grocery stores go directly to the trash.
Looks like that may have changed recently[1] but I'm a bit skeptical that all grocery stores have set up the correct supply chain to have the plastic bags be recycled.
The plastic bags are made from can be recycled. If you're determined you can recycle almost anything. However, the bags are a total nightmare for automated or semi-automated sorting of mixed recycling.
If you give me 10 trucks per day of mixed soda cans and newspapers, I can build a factory the size of a small building that separates and processes them into bales of crushed steel cans, bales of crushed aluminium cans, and bales of newspaper, all three have recycling markets and I can sell them.
If we add "some plastic bags" to those truckloads my machine is now a nightmare. The bags will tangle with anything, and they might more or less at random "hop" over or fall into holes sized to match objects, the machine that sorts alumium cans can't handle them, the machine that bales newspapers can't handle them, everywhere is now "also plastic bags", and all my customers don't want plastic bags, their specifications are clear, a little bit of Pepsi or Budweiser in the bale of steel cans is tolerable, a plastic bag is not; One cardboard loo roll mixed in with the newspaper is tolerable, a plastic bag is not; And so on.
I visited a plant in Central London that handles their area's recycling - very noisy, very interesting, they said if visitors took away just one single idea from their visit that idea should be "Don't put any fucking plastic bags in the general recycling".
Does this apply to bags that aren't of the grocery bag type? Take for example the large linked plastic bubbles that Amazon and such use as padding in their boxes. They have a recycling mark on them (#4, I think), but I'm never sure whether to mix them in with the grocery bags, which I separate from other recyclables, or with the other recyclables.
They should probably invest a bit of money in communicating that fact to the general public. For example, on the side of council recycling bins. I can't work out if my neighbours are ignorant or just lazy but it might help a little.
Lazy. Whenever I see it happen, I tell people I know: not to recycle plastic bags, not to recycle food stained paper products. I tell them, and explain why; no one I've told cares, and they all just keep their old habits.
"How do they expect us to remember this?" is the response I usually get. How do they expect you to remember what to do in a decision you make literally every day of your life? Too difficult!
That's more than a bit dismissive and ignores what has been the reality, at least here in the US:
The rules are different in every (small) municipality, often different between all three of home, work, and other commercial locations and can change remarkably frequently.
So, no, it's not something anyone does every day of ones life, at least not in the same way every time, not unless it was, "throw all trash into the one trash can".
Food stained paper? Well, actually, today, in some locality, it is recyclable, because it's "compost".
For the general public to know the details of the particular waste management program du jour of every geographic location they happen to be in is, indeed, too difficult.
And that's why I'd start making it clearer on the side of the vessel you are literally putting that recycling into. That's not too difficult and it's a start. Where I live we have some info but it's vague and doesn't mention, for example. food stained paper (which I happen to know you cannot recycle here). We don't even have compost available in my current flat, where as down the road in my old place (the same council) it was! There's no excuse for that kind of difference in waste management program and that's another thing they could easily improve on. It doesn't need to be too difficult.
Since you mention your flat, I must still insist on it actually being too difficult for the general public. Just exactly how many separate vessels, with frequently changing "clear" labelling are people going to have to keep inside their homes?
I do agree it doesn't need to be too difficult, but I think the only way that can happen is if the sorting is moved way downstream.
The primary reason I sort at home is because of the economic incentive of a larger black bin (landfill) costing more, whereas everything else is unmetered.
I'm referring to the large communal recycling vessels in the basement that people empty their stuff into a few times a week. There are three of these and they are emptied every so often.
I'm not talking about every geographical location, I'm talking about their own home. Where they have lived for the past 5+ years. Where the vast majority of their waste products are disposed of. Where recycling food stained paper or plastic bags has never been allowed.
Even if it were true that no residential waste program has ever accepted for compost food-soiled paper (nor ever will) and that even the vast majority of people discard the vast majority of their waste at home, it would not follow that this means it's not too difficult for them to remember which rules apply where.
Is it even true that people stay put an average of 5+ years in the same home or locality?
I can personally attest to the recycling rules changing more often than every 5 years in every locality I've lived in.
Recyclable is a relative term. Given a really long time you could say fossil fuels are a renewable energy source too.
I think the point here is that other types of bags are either sturdy enough to be reused, or paper, that decomposes MUCH faster and is not anywhere near as harmful to wildlife. In the ocean, paper would break down even faster than on land.
One of the worst ideas ever, spreading like a plague. All it results in is stores becoming sellers of bags and finding ways to bundle bags into the sale to capture the bag fee which they keep. Some stores didn't even use bags previously.
The bags sold are not generally reusable as a practical matter, so it causes more waste (more plastic weight over all being transacted). When they are reusable they have caused sanitation issues.
Why would you incentivize stores to sell bags? Has any of the bag ban cities seriously thought this one through?
The bags at the store are more like a forgetter's fee. Though I don't see how they aren't reusable.
I don't understand your criticism when you can bring any reusable bag into the store. Don't like the store's bags? Bring your own.
If the best criticism you can come up with for the reusable bag mandate is that you need to bring your own, that's not very damning.
In fact, I wouldn't mind if stores sold the same shitty bags as before but for 10 cents. The real win is a cultural shift towards reusability, not a good deal on plastic bags at the point-of-sale. Once again, just keep your favorite reusable bags in your car.
Wrong. The bags are a tax on the poor. Not everybody has a car, are they supposed to carry several reusable bags on their person at all times? The poor also reuse plastic bags to bag trash, now they need to buy garbage bags.
Wasting is a first-world problem. The "culture shift of reusability" is a rich person's luxury, like those alarm clocks that shred money, except it is mandated for everyone. I hope you see the absurdity and arrogance of it all.
> are they supposed to carry several reusable bags on their person at all times?
I don't get it. Do you think going to the market, especially among poor people, is some spontaneous event?
I live in Mexico with its awful purchasing power and, yes, everyone -- especially those with less money -- are bringing their own bags.
Here's how that plays out:
1. I need to go to the market
2. I'll bring some money, reusable bags, and my shopping list
3. Oh, and I'll bring my sunglasses because it's sunny
Why is this such a surprise to you? Poor people are also likely to reuse other things like clothes (hand-me-downs) and containers (like yogurt containers) just like anybody else.
It's ridiculous when people like you assume poor people are so helpless and dumb that they can't even muster the foresight to bring a bag to the market.
The bags sold are not generally reusable as a practical matter
Citation abso-fucking-lutely required.
I moved to Austin 4 years ago and use the exact same Wal Mart & HEB bags I got the first week here like literally everyone else, not a single one has gone out of use.
- Bags are heavy enough to not get blown away in the wind
- Half of the time, the bags are made of paper instead, meaning they're recyclable and (presumably) at least partially biodegradable
- The plastic bags that do exist are larger, robust enough to be brought with you to the store again and again, and at least at HEB they cost 25 cents, which discourages people from getting them unless they actually need them
Seeing things like this make me proud of my city.