# Do you use plastic grocery bags as small trash bags? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 19, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-plastic-grocery-bags-as-small-trash-bags/647733 "2013-01-19T18:51:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-plastic-grocery-bags-as-small-trash-bags/647733/61 "2013-01-21T01:03:29Z")
I can’t believe no one has said shoes yet. Any shoes that go into something else (gym bag, luggage) get put into a plastic bag first to keep whatever is on the bottom off of the clothes. Also used for wet &/or dirty clothes for the same reason. I take lunch in them. If a container leaks, it’s much easier to throw out the bag than to wash out an insulated bag. Recycling goes into some & extras get returned to store for them to recycle. Don’t use them to clean up after the pooch because of the holes. For that, I, ahem, ‘acquire’ extra produce bags at the grocery store. ---
**Author:** ![Krouget](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b38774/32.png) [@Krouget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krouget)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-plastic-grocery-bags-as-small-trash-bags/647733/62 "2013-01-21T15:30:05Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I reuse them all the time, including for garbage. Same with me. I have entirely too many uses for them. Which is interesting, because in my part of MD, they have been charging for these bags, in order to help the environment. ---
**Author:** ![rachel59](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9e5f3/32.png) [@rachel59](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rachel59)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-plastic-grocery-bags-as-small-trash-bags/647733/63 "2013-01-21T16:03:45Z")
I usually use them to wrap my baby’s dirty diapers up. I then throw them in the [trash bag](http://plasticplace.net). Believe it or not it doesn’t smell and it really controls the odor. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-plastic-grocery-bags-as-small-trash-bags/647733/64 "2013-01-21T16:11:02Z")
We use plastic shopping bags for garbage exclusively. In Toronto proper, stores are required to charge 5 cents for a plastic bag, but I don’t think that’s the case for the outlying areas like York region, so we still get freebies from time to time. > [@Sateryn76](#): > > I use them all the time for garbage liners and carrying my lunch and all kinds of stuff. If they were outlawed here, I would just buy a box of them from Uline or something. Not only would I be back to single use, but those are thicker, which would mean they use more resources. I have mixed feelings about a possible plastic bag ban (Toronto just killed such a proposed ban). On the one hand, I feel the same as you – that if you ban them, people will just use something else that’s equally bad for the environment. But on the other hand, I think experience has shown that if people have to pay for a resource vs. having it for free, then they tend to waste it less. So if I had to pay for garbage can liners, I might be more likely to collect one big bag of garbage instead of a bunch of small bags, for instance. Actually, wouldn’t the most likely result of a plastic bag ban be that more stores begin using paper bags? Then I could use those instead (our wet garbage already gets diverted to the compost bin). ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-plastic-grocery-bags-as-small-trash-bags/647733/65 "2013-01-21T18:56:56Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Grocery store plastic bags never go to waste in my house. A few are used carrying small items (snacks, small books, USB drives) back and forth to work. The majority are used as small trash liners in the bedroom and bathroom trash cans. Trash day, they get emptied, or neatly tied up and put in the big trash bag. > > Sometimes I’ll put on a plastic glove and pickup the dry doggie turds in the backyard. They go straight into a grocery bag, tied, then doubled bagged, and put into my wheelie bin. If I wipe off my greasy lawn mower or other items in the garage those rags go into a grocery bag and into the wheelie bin. > > They are so incredibly useful. > > Wouldn’t you know it. :rolleyes: Some jerk in our Legislative session wants to ban them. Hopefully it won’t pass. If it does then I’ll have to buy small trash can bags and exactly the same thing. A waste of my money and natural resources. I suspect most people reuse these bags just like I do. I have enough re-uses for them (temporary storage/transport of items, litter scooping, wastebasket lining, etc.) that I’d be very unhappy if they were banned where I live. Paper bags also have decent re-use (storage/transport as above, cat play, etc.), but I tend to find more uses for plastic. I’m too much of a ditz for re-usable bags. If they manage to make it back out to the car, they languish in the trunk and I forget to take them into the store. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-plastic-grocery-bags-as-small-trash-bags/647733/66 "2013-01-21T19:41:58Z")
I don’t know how much those little trash can liners sell for, but here’s what I use instead now that I can’t get plastic bags from my grocery store anymore: > **[T-Shirt Carry-Out Bags, 11.5" x 6.5" x 22" (1,000 ct.) - Sam's Club](https://www.samsclub.com/p/t-shirt-carry-out-bags-1000-count/170094)** > > Buy T-Shirt Carry-Out Bags, 11.5" x 6.5" x 22" (1,000 ct.) : Paper & Plastic Bags at SamsClub.com $12.60 for 1000 of them, so even with shipping (Around $7.00 for me) it ends up being pretty economical, and I don’t have to worry about restocking very often. ---
**Author:** ![perfectparanoia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a5b964/32.png) [@perfectparanoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perfectparanoia)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-plastic-grocery-bags-as-small-trash-bags/647733/67 "2013-01-21T20:51:27Z")
In our neck of the woods, we have to pay $0.05 for plastic bags. We use them for kitty litter mostly. What I do is when I go to No Frills (who have the best bags for durability and no holes, btw) I leave my reusables in the trunk and buy however many I need. I only do this when I notice that the stash of bags is low. The reality is that to buy kitchen garbage bags (the cheapest kind) would be $0.10 and these bags are much higher quality than that. If they would just let us compost kitty litter (some places can), I wouldn’t really use them at all and could use reusable bags exclusively. (I don’t use liners in my garbage cans except in the kitchen where a grocery bag would not be big enough.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-plastic-grocery-bags-as-small-trash-bags/647733.md?page=3)