Do you use your own bags at the grocery store?

[TromboneAl]

That is, do you take your own tote bags to the grocery store instead of using "paper or plastic?"

I almost never see anyone do this. Tried it recently, and found that it's more convenient than using the store bags. Expected there would be some drawback, but it works fine.

 

[Nords]

Spouse has heard that a lot of Bay Area stores charge for bags. Is this a Bay Area or a California phenomenon?

 

[TromboneAl]

They did that at one store here (far northern California) years ago (5 cents credit per bag if you brought your own).

 

[justin]

I don't, but I know Aldi discount stores charge 5 cents or so per bag if you use their bags.

 

[KB]

I started using canvas bags recently and really prefer them to plastic. Or if I'm buying only 1 item, I refuse a bag and just carry it out.

I also buy in bulk if possible to reduce the amount of packaging that I need to toss. We have a good recycling program and I toss very little garbage away. I compost everything I can, also.

Wild Oats used to have a program where you saved $.05 if reusing one of their paper bags, but they closed the store near me. We're getting a Whole Foods in my town, hope it's similar to Wild Oats or Trader Joes.

 

[bright eyed]

Spouse has heard that a lot of Bay Area stores charge for bags. Is this a Bay Area or a California phenomenon?

San Fran banned it in March, a few years earlier they had imposed a tax if you used the plastic bags.

i have an army of canvas totes but they too often get filled w/ stuff and not emptied

but i am getting better at remembering to empty and throw them in the trunk - then i forget to bring them in the store.

it is a work in progress - but i feel great when i do remember and they can hold a lot more than the plastic or paper stuff.

 

[aenlighten]

I need them to pick up after the dog.

 

[Khan]

I started using canvas bags recently and really prefer them to plastic. Or if I'm buying only 1 item, I refuse a bag and just carry it out.

I also buy in bulk if possible to reduce the amount of packaging that I need to toss. We have a good recycling program and I toss very little garbage away. I compost everything I can, also.

Same here. Kroger and Meijer credit 5 cents for each one. I also will use my own produce bags, depending on the produce.

[edited for typo]

 

[VoyT]

I have a cloth bag and a couple of nice plastic bags (give-aways from an auto shows) that I take to Aldi. If we're going to WalMart, or one of the local groceries, DH will take the overflow of plastic bags to be recycled...

 

[DangerMouse]

I have some nice reusable bags from Trader Joes. I think they were 99 cents each, my biggest problem is remembering to take them with me.

They are so much better than the plastic store bags. Fit much more in, and everything seems to pack so much better.

 

[Mwsinron]

We shop at Raley's in Sacramento. We get the usual brown bags and use them as our recycling bags.

 

[Darryl]

I don't take them in even though at least one local store offers .05 credit.

OTOH I have not bought any size trash bag in over 20 years. We use the plastic bags from the store as our trash bags.

 

[Goonie]

We always keep a few bags in the cars for when we head out to Aldi's. We use them for various other things too.

 

[eridanus]

Yes, most of the time if I remember. I get 5 cents from the local co-op grocery and 5 cents from Wild Oats. The local store also credits 5 cents for each bulk container used (tupperware for rice, honey, oatmeal, nuts, etc.)

 

[Telly]

Plastic! And I always have all sorts of uses for them. Put one in an old 1 gallon paint can, and have a perfect portable waste basket for paper towels when doing car/truck/tractor work. Fold the handles down over the side of the can, and the wind won't blow it out.
Put a small quantity of kitchen trash in one (like meat trimmings, bones), tie the handles into a knot, and put it out in the trash can, rather than smelling up the bigger kitchen wastebasket bag.
Put a couple of them in carry-on baggage, and then put your dirty clothes in them when on a short trip.

Some other uses, though I haven't tried these
Cut the bottom off, and you've got a tank top for a kid!
Collect them in your unit, and make an emergency escape rope. The warden will thank you for being prepared for emergencies, as cell-blocks often catch fire.
Hide one with you if you end up in a nursing home... follow the "directions" printed on it, just change one little bit, and you've got a self-euthanasia kit! If you feel that you are so very important, and the world may have trouble doing without you and blah blah blah, better double-bag

 

[Trek]

Always take my own cloth bags. You have to buy the plastic bags if you want them from grocery stores (I'm quite sure that is standard across Europe). The plastic bags here cost around .08 - .13 cents each depending where you shop. Also, anything that comes in a plastic bottle (water, soda, juice, etc) there is an extra charge for as well, but those are refundable if you return them.

On occasion I'll remember something I need when I'm out and about and don't have my cloth bag, so I'll buy a plastic one. But then I too will use it as a trash bag as to not waste it.

 

[donheff]

I have two Golden Retrievers and provide day care for a third. I live in the heart of town. I rely on plastic grocery bags and newspaper bags to maintain the environment. Please don't take my bags away.

 

[Joss]

We use them as bait for hunting tree-huggers.  Set up a tree stand and scatter a half dozen plastic grocery bags underneath.  Then have a few beers and pop the huggers as they scurry about picking them up.  Keep the bags because they're reusable.  If you're a decent shot, they last a long time. 

Interesting point, ignoring the offset the grocery bags create in making and disposing of dedicated garbage bags. 

Also interesting that the price of the bags is already paid, once, in the overhead componant of the price of the groceries.  Great idea... charging for them again. 

Also interesting that grocery bags are getting more PR now than used tires.  Hmmm... wonder which has a greater environmental impact?  Yeah, sure, the tires do.... but who wants canvas tires.  Besides, attacking plastic grocery bags makes me feel sooooooo...... green. 

 

[unclemick]

Also interesting that grocery bags are getting more PR now than used tires. Hmmm... wonder which has a greater environmental impact? Yeah, sure, the tires do.... but who wants canvas tires. Besides, attacking plastic grocery bags makes me feell sooooooo...... green.

$3/tire recyling fee when back in LA - they did their best to separate me from my green. Can hardly wait for some kind of 'green tax' on grocery bags.

heh heh heh

 

[eridanus]

Also interesting that the price of the bags is already paid, once, in the overhead componant of the price of the groceries. Great idea... charging for them again.

Also interesting that this isn't true, considering that plastic bags require a lot of oil to produce, which is part and parcel of the military budget, which is paid for out of income taxes, and makes us beholden to fanatics in the middle east.

But I bet you have a yellow sticker on your car!!

 

[loosechickens]

We just recently retired the bags made from old Guatemalan feed sacks that had served us for more than a dozen years, and replaced them with new bags. I couldn't even begin to think of the thousands of plastic bags those old feed sack bags saved. So many that they just plain wore out.

When peak oil comes and passes, some day in the future, if man is still around, archaelogists will marvel that we used such a precious resource as petroleum to make "disposable" products.

When they try to give me a 5 cent credit per bag in the stores, I'm offended, as though they think I have to be bribed to do the right thing. But I know many do need that incentive. A friend has talked to her mother for years about taking her own bags, with little success. Now that her mother's local grocery store is offering a 5 cent credit, the mom is now a "born again" take her own bag person.

such a small thing, but multiplied by billions upon billions of plastic bags, it's something that makes a big difference. Not just for the petroleum used to make the darned things, but for the litter they make everywhere. Here in the desert, we call all those plastic bags caught on cactus and mesquite thorns, "desert roses" and not in a complimentary way.

LooseChickens

 

[Sandy]

We use the store's plastic.

We use them for lunch bags, to pick up after the dog, as a liner for smaller gargbage cans, and we take back the remainder to the store where they have a bin to recycle them.

 

[Joss]

Also interesting that this isn't true, considering that plastic bags require a lot of oil to produce, which is part and parcel of the military budget, which is paid for out of income taxes, and makes us beholden to fanatics in the middle east.

But I bet you have a yellow sticker on your car!!

Guess you got me there. All this time I thought the stores had to buy them to "give" them away. So the feds give them to the stores because our taxes paid for them? My bad.

And my whole car is yellow, by the way... for whatever that counts for.

 

[Ibid]

I keep having to educate new baggers not to put
the plastic bags *inside* my canvas bags. :

 

[eridanus]

Guess you got me there. All this time I thought the stores had to buy them to "give" them away. So the feds give them to the stores because our taxes paid for them? My bad.

It's called an externality.