News

I just carry some of the thick ones in my car in the trunk and just bag there at the car. I fold them up and bring them to the car and leave them there next time I go out anywhere. A habit that is less common for me to forget to do now but I did forget all the time initially and would pay at the counter. I have an excess of them now though so even when I do forget to bring some down I have spares in the car. Less chance of forgetting twice anyway. Easy thing to change to.

Coming from a country that did this ages ago for stupid reasons.

Wait until they come for your straws. Cutting down trees for paper bags I can deal with but fucking paper straws (Mcdonalds im looking at you) is god awful.

Edit: downvoters getting sour about the paper bags consuming trees is a reality and cost of shifting resources. So do we create enormous plastic waste and destroy the environment or do we cut down trees and destroy the atmosphere. Policy change requires constructive thought, critical thought to test, and balance (not always but considered) to get the best outcome.

Ireland has a plastic bag levy of 22c per bag. Most supermarkets don't even bother selling single use bags any more. If you want to buy a bag, then your choice is a thicker reusable bag or a "bag for life" that most supermarkets will charge you 70c or more for.

I suppose some people might throw them away but more likely they hang onto them because they cost so much to begin with.

In some supermarkets like LIDL and Aldi it's also quite common for someone to grab an empty cardboard box that (the stores usually toss them in a big mesh bin) and use that to carry stuff away. These can be put into recycling.

There is also a drive to ban single use plastics like cutlery, straws, cups etc. Ireland also just imposed a refundable tax on plastic bottles and cans - supermarkets have machines that ingest returned containers and print out a credit slip.

My city banned plastic bags and it costs 10 cents for paper bags so you definitely see a lot more cloth bags being brought in. Just at grocery stores, you still get take out in plastic bags every so often but most places just switched to all paper

ok so this is a mindset problem : people are too accustomed to disposable, and lost the habit to re-use (thank to Consumer society)?

This problem can be solved with education, with new habits taught to young generations : awareness courses about waste management, teaching about sorting, waste reduction, composting and food waste.

In my area they do it since 6 years in schools, now children are educating their parents !

Would it not work to do like we do for refundable cans? QR code or barcode on the bag to verify and store drop off for a refund of this 10/15¢. People would go out of their way to collect and drop these off at facilities that could accept and recycle these.

Yeah. Why are they even offering these? Use paper for instacart shoppers only. Everyone else needs to bring their own. Why is it so hard to put this into play?

now plastic bags are no longer free - but honestly $0.15/bag is basically free so most folks still toss them out.

Yup. They just created more waste. We need to make the jump to no plastic bags. It's time, we can do it.

They did this in the UK and it worked. The Cali law just has dumb ass loopholes in it.

"banned..."

They never banned them. They just made people have to pay for them, and forced them to be made differently. The new bags are better than before; but they're still plastic and most people aren't re-using them.

Plastic bags need to be banned totally.