I’ve heard this also. There was a team of archaeologists from the University of Arizona, I think, who drilled down into landfills for research purposes. I remember they talked about how little things had decayed over a few decades, including food items that looked unchanged and newspapers that looked readable still. They drive heavy equipment over the tops of the piles of fill, to compress stuff, which means there’s little air and I think the landfills are designed to drain water away, so not much decays, at least not quickly.
Has anyone factored in the envro impact of washing the reusable bags? If you don’t wash them regularly there is a risk of contamination from any number of things that might leak into the bag.
Hot water, soap, bleach, gas, electricity. Busybodies never think through their pet projects.
Another observation. Apparently the poor will learn very quickly to bring their bags and adapt to a changing world but at the same time are too stupid, lazy and ill equipped to get a photo ID for voting.
What, you don’t wash your clothes?
All the time, but I would bet real money that most people don’t wash their grocery bags often or at all.
There is plenty of information on this, here’s the first link I found.
Are we really going to drag a poll tax question into a shopping bag debate?
My reusable bags get washed (in cold water) w/ the rest of the laundry, as running coach has noted, except the white bags I have dedicated to meat and those go in the hot water bleach cycle.
Facts about San Francisco’s single-use bag ordinance
Put your drippy meat in the plastic bags provided in the meat section. Pretty sure they all provide them these days.
Huh, I can’t remember the last time I saw one unlined. But of course, all my neighbors do because it’s required.
I have several reusable grocery bags. I never wash them. The grocery store wraps meat in plastic bags, and those I don’t reuse.
If I may, where do you live (roughly)?
So instead of using a plastic bag you use a cloth bag and put a plastic bag inside.
Where’s the saving there? :smack:
Meat always gets separately bagged. Either it’s in clear plastic bags, to protect against leaks. That wrapped meat goes into a reusable bag or plastic or if unwrapped, goes in its own reusable bag by itself.
No difference.
Because you’re only using one or two bags for meat rather than a dozen or more for the entire grocery load.
Keep smacking yourself, maybe you’ll bump-start your brain.
I am stealing this.
If I see they’re not too busy I’ll ask the butchers to wrap meat I order in butcher paper. Same for deli. I carry mesh bags for produce so they can go right in the fridge as is if I want them to, saves me a second when I’m putting things away.
In my experience, the shrink wrapping on the prepackaged meat is really, really good and it’s not even necessary to put the package in a separate plastic bag.
Not in mine and it’s not worth the risk of cross contamination.
I’m in the northeast. And the requirement isn’t law, but it’s a requirement of both of the companies you can hire to haul away the trash in my town. (You can also hire no one and bring your trash to the town dump yourself.)
I might have four or five large reusable bags, mostly filled with cereal and canned goods and vegetables and milk and laundry detergent and bread and… And within those bags there might be one or two small bags containing meat. Or, the meat may be on its own, in its own bag, separate from the other groceries.
(The veggies are mostly in plastic, too, but I often reuse those bags. Usually for non-food.)
I’m not sure I understand the purpose of this, though. In my area we typically use the large trash cans as a collectors of smaller trash bags, i.e., these are trash can liners for smaller, interior trash cans. By time they end up in the collector, there’s no reason to line the collector, is there?
The law of unintended consequences. The trash collector gets fined if their dump site can see that they are putting e recyclables in the trash. They don’t want to spend the time to examine all the trash they collect to insure there aren’t visible recyclables. So they require their customers to hide the trash in an opaque bag, or they won’t collect it.
Kid you not.
The bags probably also make it easier for them to transfer trash from your trashcan to their truck without spilling.
Damn tootin’. Apple, Google, Cisco, Netflix, AMD, Intel — they’re all tired of suffering under the regime of this North Koraa-lookalike; they’re closing their doors and moving to Mississippi with its enlightened governance and fine schools. The big TV and movie producers are moving to Alabama. Disneyland is going to relocate in Kansas for the tax breaks.
ah! nice sarcasm 