Can anyone point out a flaw in my logic? I keep thinking I must be missing something.
I know buying & using reusable bags instead of getting plastic bags from the grocery store is all the rage right now, and I completely understand why. I totally get the whole "reduce, reuse, recycle" philosophy. I've been washing out and reusing my plastic baggies all of my life. I use the plastic bags the newspaper comes in as doggie pooper scooper bags. When I go to the farmer's market (where I'm just getting one or two items per stall) I bring a tote and put my produce in there directly. On the rare occasions I hit the outlet stores, I'll get a bag from the first store and tell other stores to skip the bag and just put my purchases directly in the first bag.
But for my household, I just haven't been able to figure out how giving up plastic grocery bags makes sense. We are a 2-person (and 1-dog) household, and the trash gets emptied every day. The trash has to be placed in tied-off plastic bags. So I use the bags from the grocery store, and I double bag because there are often little holes in them. On most days, we don't even fill up a grocery store sized bag of trash. I need all of my grocery bags for my household trash! The only way I could give up plastic grocery bags would be if I went out and bought replacement plastic bags, and I can't see the logic in buying something to replace the exact same thing that I get for free. And given that most store bought trash bags are for large size trash cans, they might end up using even more plastic and that would be most environmentally unfriendly.
If we were a big family and needed big trash bags and had to buy them, it would be an entirely different story. But we're a small family with small daily trash accumulation.
I think my logic is correct, and I think in our case in makes sense to keep getting plastic grocery bags, but I do feel a tad sheepish when I see all of these wonderful people walking out of the store with their "green" bags while I tote my old-fashioned plastic.
Am I missing something?
And may I just say a big thank you in advance to anyone who answers ... not only for your insights, but for understanding why stuff like this matters to someone like me (or should I say people like us).
Plastic Bags: What Am I Missing?
June 20th, 2008 at 01:22 am
June 20th, 2008 at 01:40 am 1213922426
June 20th, 2008 at 02:09 am 1213924171
We also reuse our grocery bags for one thing or another, though ultimately they are still ending up in a landfill. A few times recently, I took plastic bags back to the store and used them again. I have to try and remember to keep a bunch of them in my trunk for that purpose.
June 20th, 2008 at 02:57 am 1213927041
I think how your using your bags is fine. Could you bring home paper and take your daily trash out in that? It would be better for the landfill. Maybe find other ways to avoid as much plastic in your purchases. I bought a 20 pack of toilet paper once. Inside the large plastic covering was 5 wrapped packages of 4 rolls. Plastic overkill there!
June 20th, 2008 at 03:02 am 1213927341
June 20th, 2008 at 04:28 am 1213932486
So if it makes no difference landfill-wise, why would I let Walmart save expenses by not having to provide as many plastic bags at the checkout... and then turn around and give them more money when I buy bags?
June 20th, 2008 at 05:08 am 1213934899
And so far I haven't had to buy a cloth bag. Got them for free. Now one of the few perks hitting a supermarket grand opening if you can.
June 20th, 2008 at 06:08 am 1213938480
We don't buy plastic bags and we put plastic bags in most of our trash cans. But we just keep them and reuse them. we can toss the trash freely into the trash bin, which is what we do.
Of course, I have a LARGE pile of extra bags (large) from when we had a diaper service so I go through and empty the house trash in one of those, and also use those for the cat litter these days (very sturdy). Not sure what I will do when we run out. I hadn't much thought about that - though I imagine I would probably reuse one large back much for most of the trash. Cat litter, will always need plastic bags. (These bags will literally last years - we aren't very trashy).
But, I just had to say we use our totes and get 5 cents per bag every time we use them in the store. Dh ran to the store for a 15 cent purchase and told me he was tempted to hand them 5 bags and see if he got money back. LOL.
I don't remember the last time we had to buy a plastic bag - they are just everywhere I guess. Mostly what we notice.
June 20th, 2008 at 03:04 pm 1213970663
We still have a couple and they are useful for small loads of trash that must go out each day, or for lining the mini cans in the bathrooms...but we also are a family of 6..so in spite of composting and recycling, and in general less trash in, we still need to buy a giant bag to fill up.
Of course if you start to get store credit back then you prolly should research alternate sources of plastic.
June 20th, 2008 at 03:55 pm 1213973728
For those who "collect" those grocery store bags and don't reuse them often, check out some of the local grocery stores - some have bins where you can place the grocery bags for recycling.
June 20th, 2008 at 05:09 pm 1213978174