# How widely used is the brown paper bag in US supermarkets? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 29, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306 "2005-01-29T18:24:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/41 "2005-01-29T21:29:06Z")
Another advantage of the paper bag is that you can bring it back to the store on your next trip and re-use it. I do this. One week I get plastic to use for trash and other things, and this can last me 2 weeks. On the alternate week I re-use paper bags, and they last for months. I’d think it would be really difficult for a bagger to re-use a plastic bag, but apparently in California Safeway does it, and in addition gives you a refund of 1 cent (3 cents for paper). Of course, in San Francisco, they’re talking about charging 17 cents for each paper or plastic bag! > **[Adding up the cost of bags](https://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/Adding-up-the-cost-of-bags-2703028.php)** > > Today, the San Francisco Commission on the Environment is expected to adopt a resolution... > [@](#): > > “All are very disturbed that supermarkets are the target when others that deal in plastic bags or paper bags are not subject to the tax,” says Paul Smith, a vice president with the California Grocers Association. > > "This is about money. The city of San Francisco needs revenue to fund its environmental services. It’s looking to our customer base to raise that money, " he says. > > He says bags are included in the cost of groceries and cost supermarkets less than 1 cent each for plastic and several pennies for paper. People’s reactions and more info about different countries’ policies here: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/27/BUGLBB0UJG1.DTL](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/27/BUGLBB0UJG1.DTL) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/42 "2005-01-29T21:50:04Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Another advantage of the paper bag is that you can bring it back to the store on your next trip and re-use it. I do this. One week I get plastic to use for trash and other things, and this can last me 2 weeks. On the alternate week I re-use paper bags, and they last for months. Plenty of people here store plastic bags, and reuse them in all sorts of ways. Plus, some supermarkets (and many municipal waste sites) have recycling bins for them. > [@](#): > > Of course, in San Francisco, they’re talking about charging 17 cents for each paper or plastic bag! Ireland have already started such a tax, with no little success. > [@Cinnamon Girl](#): > > (never shop without a cup of coffee) …I guess nobody would contemplate trying to drink anything coffee-based served by Tescos, so that leaves a hand free for bread 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/43 "2005-01-29T22:57:08Z")
As a minor corrolary, most US grocery store (here in the South it’s mostly plastic unless you ask for paper) will bag your wine bottles or other large glass things in a smaller paper bag within the plastic bag. Not the regular-size paper bags, little wine-bottle sized ones. So they don’t smack into each other and break. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/44 "2005-01-29T22:57:58Z")
All supermarkets will allow you to bring your own cloth bags, and some of them will give you a discount (something like three cents per bag) for each of your own bags that you use. They’re ecologically better than either paper than plastic. You should have no problem making them last ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/45 "2005-01-30T01:08:14Z")
In Australia, plastic bags are almost exclusively used in the major supermarkets although theres enviromentally friendly cloth bags have been heavily promoted in recent years. The checkout person is the person who bags your groceries. Theres 2 little holder things with a big stack of plastic bags on them. The checkout pulls the front of the bag open and attaches it to little hooks and the bag stays open and they just drop stuff in right after it’s checked out. It maybe adds 10 seconds to the checkers job and it saves the expense of another person. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/46 "2005-01-30T01:41:41Z")
one store i go to has the handle less paper bag that get put into a plastic bag. trader joes and fresh fields have handles, you also get a bit off your total if you bring your own bag. i reuse the plastic for trash, paper bags for paper recycle. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/47 "2005-01-30T01:44:14Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > As a minor corrolary, most US grocery store (here in the South it’s mostly plastic unless you ask for paper) will bag your wine bottles or other large glass things in a smaller paper bag within the plastic bag. . Ahh…the ‘better’ supermarkets here have special wine-crate cardboard contraptions that hold six bottles very conveniently. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/48 "2005-01-30T14:02:34Z")
The OP mentions seeing brown paper bags on American TV. The reason for that is simple: it’s a more iconic prop to fill a few brown paper bags with styrofoam blocks to fill the bottom of a bag with a few groceries sticking out of the top. (Celery stalks, egg cartons, french loaf bread, carrots and whole pineapples always seem to be on the top.) Also, the squarish bags are easier to handle and set down flat, which is important in case multiple takes are needed. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/49 "2005-01-30T16:58:51Z")
The soda is a good reference point across countries. For the crummy US plastic bags, putting more than 2 2-liter bottles in will often lead to the handles stretching too far and failing. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/50 "2005-01-30T17:02:40Z")
[_The San Francisco Chronicle_](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/25/BUGCJAVPAI1.DTL&type=business) says that supermarkets in San Francisco hand out 50 million bags a year, 90 percent plastic and 10 percent paper. [_OneEarth_](http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/03sum/bag.asp) magazine wrote in 2003 that 80 percent of groceries in the United States go home in plastic bags. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/51 "2005-01-31T15:07:59Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > As a minor corrolary, most US grocery store (here in the South it’s mostly plastic unless you ask for paper) will bag your wine bottles or other large glass things in a smaller paper bag within the plastic bag. I _wish_ I could buy beer and wine in the grocery store near my house, but unfortunately the city I live in makes it illegal to do so. I have to go to the beer and wine store, located about a mile away, which happens to be in the next city over (I’m in the Dallas area where the suburbs are all adjacent). About the logos and designs on paper bags - I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a plain brown paper bag used in a grocery store. In my experience, they _all_ have the store’s logo on them. A few of the more upscale ones nowadays have handles, but I thought this was a recent development. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/52 "2005-01-31T15:46:59Z")
> [@DougC](#): > > - The local “grocery industry scam” is that all the grocery stores seem to have a big special trash can placed up near the front doors somewhere that you can bring old plastic bags and leave them for “recycling”… -except that… there are no local recyclers who take the stuff. The _cardboard and paper_ the stores produce gets recycled, but the returned plastic bags just get thrown in with the rest of the regular trash. > ~ In the back room of the stores I worked you always had to separate out the plastic (bubble wrap/packaging, etc) into a separate container, and the cardboard into the baler. I assume they both got picked up and recycled by someone (otherwise, why bother?) I also heard tell of a compost bin for the old produce. This I assume the city picks up and uses for the parks, etc. I was just a vendor, though, and didn’t know the inner workings of every store. My impression though was that there are certain companies that service businesses that do one specific thing (like recycle plastic) that a regular “recycling plant” that caters to everyone wouldn’t do. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/53 "2005-01-31T15:53:19Z")
According to the LA paper, San Francisco supermarkets are now charging 13 cents per bag for either paper or plastic, in order (so they say) to encourage people to recycle. I can’t think of an appropriate comment… ---
**Author:** ![sugaree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@sugaree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugaree)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/54 "2005-01-31T17:13:59Z")
In my experience, plastic grocery bags _might_ hold three 2-liter Coke bottles-- but if I’m walking home, I’m not going to risk it. **Lobsang** , the bags shown in your first two links are similiar to bags given out by some American clothing or shoe stores, but they are clearly of a higher quality than the typical American plastic grocery bag. The kid-bag \*looks \*more a U.S food bag. The bag is semi-transparent like ours are, but it is also a little larger than the ones which with I am familiar. The Safeway bags I have stashed away for litter box cleaning measure about 13 inches tall (18 with handle) and 12 inches across the bottom seam. [Bags in waiting.](http://www.humanae-vitae.com/humane_vitae/images/checkout-thumb.jpg) [The green bag on the left is a typical American grocery bag.](http://www.culverco.com/eew/help/act_bags_plastic.html) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306/55 "2005-01-31T20:34:52Z")
> [@](#): > > In my experience, plastic grocery bags might hold three 2-liter Coke bottles-- but if I’m walking home, I’m not going to risk it. I always walk or bike to the grocery store, and if I put two 2-liter bottles into a single plastic bag, it’s going to break through before I get home. It might be enough if I were just carrying them out to the parking lot, but I’m not, so I double-bag anything that heavy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-widely-used-is-the-brown-paper-bag-in-us-supermarkets/287306.md?page=2)