jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

In NY, stores no longer provide plastic bags for your purchases. The first time I saw stores using plastic bags was 1974 in England. We had them here for a long time, but I'm glad to see that they're gone.

However, I do miss them at times. I always kept a supply on hand for use around the house. I could buy them online, but I don't need that many, and I don't want to encourage their production.

I was in a store last week, and the old man in front of me asked for a plastic bag. The clerk said that they hadn't used plastic bags in four years. The old man got furious and started screaming. Don't be that kind of ignorant, abusive old man/woman. It was funny, though. He didn't realize that he had gotten his last plastic bag four years ago, and he got furious because they weren't available. For most of his life, plastic bags didn't even exist.

tradio Loc: Oxford, Ohio

Are they back on paper?
Here in SW Ohio, plastic is still king but the city is contemplating outlawing styrofoam carry out containers and plastic straws.
We always recycle our plastic bags as many times as we can but with the Kroger bags, your'e lucky to get in the house before they rip open.

BebuLamar

Jerry I make plastic bags for a living.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

My hit rate for remembering to take sacks into the store is maybe 33%.
But I'm trying to get better....

David Martin Loc: Cary, NC

Don't forget that plastic bags, invented in Sweden in 1959, were strongly advocated by environmentalists as a replacement for paper bags in order "to save the planet" by "saving our trees."
And now here we are, banning plastic bags in order to "save the planet."
And we see parallel misguided campaigns to save the planet underway in our time.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

Part of the reason for no more plastic bags, is because when slobs are not careful discarding bags they end up in the ocean and impede sea life. They think it is a jellyfish. Personally, I’m not that hungry.

I no longer use plastic straws since I saw a sea turtle that was rescued after inhaling a straw. We need to be more conscientious of what we do with waste. I prefer saving cloth bags and keeping one for ready use.

I have shopped in Lowe’s and spent over $100. I find it appalling to have the cashier ask if I want to spend an additional 5 cents to have a paper bag to carry my purchases. They should automatically give a paper bag. If not, I can get a FREE shopping cart.

Fortunately, when I complete a sale in the pharmacy where I work, I happily give a paper bag. The reason is for patient confidentiality.

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

First time I experienced no plastic bags was California - that was in the spring of 2017. I'm glad to see them banned as I live in the midwest and see them in the fields, fences, trees, gutters, etc... In the cities/states where they are not being used, there are no bags blowing around and the landscape is cleaner.

BebuLamar

In California thin bags are banned (typically about 10 micron thick) but thick bag of around 50 microns are allowed but the store charge some money for them. We make decent money making them thick bags as we sell them by the pounds and the thick bags are 4 to 5 times heavier so we can make more money running machines at 1/3 the speed. Stores don't mind to pay more for them as they can charge even more for them.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

On the farm stand we used plastic bags. We had 6 20 gallon trash cans. We asked customers to bring us plastic bags and left the trash cans at the stand for the winter. In the spring we had 6 trash cans packed full of plastic bags. We generally had to buy two cases of plastic bags to fill in at the end of the season (1000 bags/case). I expect we would have had to buy 6 cases at the beginning of the season if we didn't get the donations.

When I retired I bought one case of 1000 and another case of 2000 smaller bags. The small bags go to the kitchen for scraps that get tossed or they get used when the dog gets walked. They cost $0.0075 apiece, cheaper than buying the plastic bags from the pet store for that purpose. The case of small bags has lasted us 5 years now and has another 2-3 years left. The regular size bag gets taken to the grocery store and used, then taken a couple more times for the groceries. They cost $0.015 apiece. The state (CT) says that grocery stores can't pack your groceries in those plastic bags unless you bring them. Instead, they use paper bags but they are required to charge $0.10 apiece for them.

Grocery stores can use the produce bags on rolls so you can pack loose vegetables, but not the T-shirt bags to carry things home. Prohibiting the T-shirt bags probably reduced the plastic usage around here by about 10%, since so many things go in the thin vegetable bags or are packed in plastic bags encased in plastic shrink wrap. Prohibiting the T-shirt bags is just a drop in the bucket of plastic use, although the T-shirt bags did appear outside the trash stream more frequently.

David Martin Loc: Cary, NC

The irony from an environmental-climate-change standpoint, is that plastic bags are much more energy efficient to produce. According to a BBC article, a paper bag requires 3 times as much energy to produce, and a cotton cloth bag requires 131 times as much energy to produce.

When they were invented, it was envisioned that plastic bags would be kept and repeatedly reused. They were never meant to be used once and then discarded.

alawry Loc: Timaru New Zealand

Our government has also gone thru a process of stopping shops giving away plastic bags for purchases etc. I understand and endorse the sentiments behind that. In the shop where I work we sell clothing, each garment arrives from the manufacturer in it's own plastic bag which we have to remove and bin! I am a motorcycle wheel builder among other jobs. If I order genuine Honda spokes, they arrive each spoke in it's own bag, with the nipple in the bag but in it's own bag. Then there's ten individually wrapped spokes in an outer bag. A wheel has typically 36 spokes, so that's 75 bags! some very small of course. I think most trades will have a similar story. Visit a bicycle shop and watch a brand new bike come out of it's box. Probably 30 bags. I think one of the American companies is addressing the issue though.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Stores generally charge a nickel for a paper bag, and they encourage you to bring your own reusable bags. That's what I do. I keep a bunch of canvas bags folded flat in the car. When I place a food order online and pick it up at the store, they don't seem to charge a nickel for each of the dozen bags I get - maybe just $0.40. I save the bags and put paper garbage in them. Then they go into the wood stove. It costs $6.00 to bring a large plastic bag of garbage to the dump, so I recycle and burn as much as I can.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Plastic bags are definitely overused, and they wind up littering the environment. They are so light that the wind takes them, and they rift forever. What's worse is when animals get stuck in them. When you think that plastic is taking the petroleum that could be moving our cars and heating our homes, do we really need that much plastic?

DaleBrown

Exactly correct👍