19 replies to this topic

[Racer184]

I insist on paper bags at the grocery store.
Usually the bagger speaks absolutely no English, not even the word "paper" and loads my groceries up in 6 to 12 plastic bags. (They even put the box of kitty-litter, which has a built in handle, into its own plastic bag. )

I take out all my groceries and put it all in O N E paper bag, point to the bag as I repeat "paper paper paper".

Its typically 8 plastic bags to hold one paper bag of groceries. I use the paper bags for many things, like padding when shipping products, garbage bags, even note paper.

With your groceries in plastic bags, almost everything falls out as soon as you set the bags on the floor of your truck. So when you get home you have to re-bag everything, so why put it in bags in the first place?

The big-name national autoparts store only has plastic bags, which is ok... those bags get used again when I carry the messy quarts of used oil back in to recycle......

As for communities that have recycling programs, is there a program in the world that does NOT take paper bags ? I doubt it. ( I wish they would take junk mail, that would more than double what I recycle.)

To me plastic grocery bags have only two purposes; 1) blow around as litter until they blow into the ocean or 2) blow around until they get enough rainwater or lawnsprinkler water in them to make wonderful little mosquitoe breeding ponds.

[peterbj7]

As Weescot said, Europe is improving in this. For many years (at least 20) I've driven once a week to an out-of-town supermarket near Oxford in England and collected my shopping in cardboard boxes used to deliver produce to the supermarkets. I've only used plastic bags when I needed the properties of those bags. Many shops now offer strong paper bags, either solely or as an alternative. Though it's hard to walk carrying paper bags, and in the rain they are useless.

Here in Belize it's another story. Everything, no matter how small or how much pre-packaged, is offered to you in a plastic bag. Because of language difficulties (this is the only country I know where in certain areas such as mine the majority don't speak the only official language at all) it is often difficult to decline these bags. They're everywhere, and inevitably get into the ocean.

But even so they're not perceived as the main problem. That accolade goes to the polystyrene fast food boxes which are used in vast numbers here. belize, or at any rate the bits I've been to, subsists on fast food, and it's ALWAYS served up in one of these boxes. Just as with plastic bags, many of these find their way into the sea.

This sea-borne debris then drifts under influence of wind & current to certain naturakl "collection spots", and if you ever see any of these it's quite dispiriting. Every now and again there's an initiative for land owners to collect up those within their ambit, but the enthusiasm usually only lasts a week or so.

All rubbish here is burned, and I think that's the only way to deal with it - probably the only way, though (extraordinarily) that's now illegal in England. So the plastc bags, boxes, cups and whatever that actually make their way to the refuse tip are dealt with. The problem is the large numbers that don't.

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

( I wish they would take junk mail, that would more than double what I recycle.)

If I receive junk mail that has a postage-paid reply envelope in it, I stuff everything that came to me unsolicited from that company and put it into the postage-paid reply envelope and send it right back to the sender! With the sender paying to get their own unwanted stuff back, maybe they'll take my name off their list!

[Bubble2Bubble]

Tammy

I stuff everything that came to me unsolicited from that company and put it into the postage-paid reply envelope and send it right back to the sender! With the sender paying to get their own unwanted stuff back, maybe they'll take my name off their list!

Thats a Great Idea!

I saw on the National News lastnight that they are going to stop making plastic bags all together someday ? I hope its sooner not later....

Bubs

Edited by Bubble2Bubble, 24 July 2008 - 09:29 AM.

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

I stuff everything that came to me unsolicited from that company and put it into the postage-paid reply envelope and send it right back to the sender! With the sender paying to get their own unwanted stuff back, maybe they'll take my name off their list!

Thats a Great Idea!

I saw on the National News lastnight that they are going to stop making plastic bags all together someday ? I hope its sooner not later....

Bubs

Grassroots movement! We'll just get everybody on SD to send junk mail back to the sender in the postage-paid envelope , and then we'll all recycle our leftover plastic bags , and hope the legislation to halt production of more bags happen soon -- but I guess that will be a political decision...