So, someone on my Facebook linked to a political campaign in California to outlaw plastic and paper bags, or at least to encourage consumers to use reusable shopping bags instead.
The plastic bags is kind of a no-brainer. I suppose if they ever go away entirely, I’ll have to start buying trash bags for my smaller trash cans, but whatever.
The paper bag bit kinda threw me. A quick google indicates that it takes a lot more energy to make a paper bag (or at least it did 20 years ago, when the cited study was published). Call me cynical though, since I got that info from a website that sells reusable shopping bags.
So what’s the Straight Dope on paper bags? Pros? Cons? I saw a bit talking about how many trees get chopped down to make paper bags. Do these trees get replaced? I’ve assumed since I was a kid that lumber companies would plant new trees after they cut down a bunch, since it would only be good business sense to do so (if you CAN produce more of what you make money selling, why wouldn’t you?
Yes, trees that get cut down get re-planted. I live in an area that’s been heavily forested for decades, and we’ve still got plenty of trees. It’s a bit disconcerting when the lumber companies come in and cut down the trees around a trail you like (they did this a year or two ago to me :mad:) but overall, I’d MUCH rather live near the lumber industry than the mining industry. (We have that, too, and it’s much worse).
As far as paper versus plastic, I’ve read the same stuff you have, and sidestepped the whole issue with reusable bags. Regardless of plastic versus paper, when I thought about the sheer # of bags I was throwing away every week, the solution seemed obvious.
One of the stores near me has paper bags with handles, which greatly increases their utility. I re-use them as grocery bags until they’re on the verge of falling apart. Then they get to line bird cages. Then they go to the compost heap.
Well, that’s the potential - in truth, quite a few get diverted to other fates after months of being used for groceries.
So I have re-usable bags, they just happen to be made of paper instead of canvas.
I re-use plastic bags for liners for the bathroom trash can. That’s only one re-use, but at least it’s one and I inevitably get plastic bags from here or there. I also keep a few in my car for use at construction sites where I’ve had to take care of everything from paint-gooped tools to shoes covered in dogshit (we were building a dog run to contain the dogs, but meanwhile they had the freedom of the yard and used it, ew.) I also use them for carrying other stuff at times. So most of my plastic bags see at least one re-use as well.
So I don’t bother to buy special canvas “re-usable” bags.
In Ireland, the government has taxed plastic bags since 2002. It’s now 22c per bag, which you must pay at the till.
According to their website - usage of plastic bags per person per year dropped from 328 to 21. It rose slightly to 31, so the government increased the tax from 15c to 22c.
Now, everyone carries cloth shopping bags in their cars, or they just pick up stuff in their hands. If a large bag is needed, it will usually be a paper or cardboard one. And that goes in the recycling bin.
We no longer have what they used to call witches’ knickers - torn plastic bags everywhere streaming in the wind from trees and shrubs.
There’s no perfect way. Reusable cloth bags have been found to harborE. coli bacteria. Of course washing them takes care of that, but then you’ve added more soap to the water supply.
I don’t recall seeing that phenomenon around here, and plastic bags are provided by virtually every store. No offense, but are your countrymen dedicated litterbugs?
recent feature story on news media, states they can be a problem if contaminated with food and be moist. dry food material that has gotten moist, vegetable material, meat juice can grow harmful microorganisms.
to have such a story indicates their increased popularity. stores will encourage their use by selling the bags, some places with store logo.
to be safer wash and dry your sack.
i should refresh if i don’t complete a reply immediately, Gary T commented similarly.
I’d prefer this than an outright ban. What we need is to stop people from mindlessly asking for a bag. I was behind a woman the other day who requested a bag for two 1/2-liter bottles.
And this is problematic/weird/undesirable how? It seems perfectly reasonable to me that someone would like to carry those bottles in a bag, easily with one hand. Without a bag takes two hands or quite an awkward position for one.
Hmm… on base they sell these green plasticy reusable bags. I don’t think they’re washable, Then again, I think they use them mostly at the BX, which doesn’t sell much food (snacks mostly. The food is sold at the Commissary.)
So basically, it wouldn’t exactly be a waste for me invest in some canvas sacks, were I so inclined? The fact that I use plastic shopping bags around the apartment would indicate I need not get rid of them entirely, but I know for a fact I get way too many of the silly things.
It’s not all that awkward to carry it with one hand. She walked about 100’ back to her car. IMO it was mindlessly asking for a bag for roughly 20 seconds of minor inconvenience. If she wants to pay an extra 22 cents for that convenience then at least she’s thought about it. I’ve also seen people get a few items in a bag and then throw it out in the can just outside the door. In that instance it was the clerk who was mindlessly putting the item in the bag.
You may live in a special place. Every heavily populated area I’ve been through in the United States has plastic bags visible from the highways – usually more than one in sight at all times.
One study of trash in the heavily-polluted Anacostia river (which runs through the nation’s capital, and ought to be a showcase) showed that 33% of the trash in the river (by item count) was plastic bags…but 50% of the items in its tributaries are plastic bags, they tend to snag in the brush and thus the lower concentration in the river itself.
In fact we have a few good ideas. I believe ours was the first national government to ban smoking in any indoor place of work - including restaurants and bars. The Irish just moved the conversation outdoors, and many people now go outdoors out of habit even when they smoke at home.
Just like the smoking ban, the plastic bag tax has changed people’s habits. I remember buying a pack of chocolates ten years ago. The person who sold it put it in a plastic bag automatically. I had to point out that the chocolates were already in a sealed plastic bag.
Now, if I buy a few small items, I just pick them up in my hands and carry them to my car. Just like I would do at home. I don’t even think about it any more.
Note that our law has exceptions for unpackaged food. Where hygeine is an issue, then a thin bag may be used with no tax charge. That deals with the valid concerns about cloth bag hygeine raised above.
No kidding. Washington, DC enacted a plastic bag tax starting in January of this year, and in the first month the number of bags given out dropped from 22.5 million to 3 million. And that’s despite an intense political battle which probably left a certain subset of people ordering plastic bags out of spite. Old, ingrained habits change quickly when money is involved.
The problem I see is that reusable bags have a lot more material involved, which means the resource cost is much higher to produce them. A single reusable bag can be as much as 100 plastic bags in terms of resources to produce.
Since I reuse my paper and plastic bags for trash, lunches, etc. I would feel a little silly buying trash bags at the store and bringing them home in my new reusable bags, but if there was a tax on the checkout bags, that would be the only feasible solution.
For a person like me, then, eliminating plastic bags would never save resources. It would just shift me to a different kind of consumption.
Reusable bags certainly reduce litter… though I see very few plastic bags (suburbs of Seattle) except in places where trash collects, like the drainage system.
It’s 5c a bag in Ontario and the only real impact for me has been less people give me strange looks as I cart around my own bags. I bought a set of amazing canvas ones from Lands End a long time ago. They wash up very well and since I tend to buy a bag for anything meat like I only wash them about once a month.
Oddly the place I have the hardest time convincing that I don’t need plastic bags is our local farmer market. Most of the stands have bags inside of their pint or quart containers and they’d really prefer if you just pulled that bag out and kept it.
It’s easy to get 100 uses out of a reusable bag. Also, some of the reusables I have will hold as much as 3-4 plastic bags, and when I use reusables, the bags tend to actually get filled, rather than have just a couple of items in it.
So instead of binging home 8-10 platic bags from my last grocery store run, I used 2 reusables and 1 disposable plastic bag around some meat, so it didn’t leak.
I reuse my paper bags that have handles until a handle falls off or they otherwise fall apart. The store gives 5 cents off the bill per bag as well. Been doing it about a year and have only needed new bags for one trip so far.
