One Month Until Plastic Bag Ban Takes Effect (Austin, West: home, buying)

[Austinite101]

Paper or plastic? Pretty soon Austin won't have a choice

If you are in the city limits and have not yet gotten into the groove of bringing your reusable bags with you to the store, I'd start now. Its really not hard at all to do after you get used to it.

[stubbs4prez]

I am just about ready to buy my bags for when the ban kicks in. Planning on buying these
Amazon.com: T-Shirt Carryout Bags - 1000 ct.: Kitchen & Dining

I figure that give my wife and I plenty to get by for a while and leaves me with some extra to hand out to people I see who forgot their bags.

[mickey65]

I've been stock-piling my plastic grocery bags for "just in case". I live in RR, but so far the only bans on the bags I know about out here at the Goodwill stores. Once they are gone - you have to bring your own to their stores.

[Austinite101]

Originally Posted by stubbs4prez

I am just about ready to buy my bags for when the ban kicks in. Planning on buying these
Amazon.com: T-Shirt Carryout Bags - 1000 ct.: Kitchen & Dining

I figure that give my wife and I plenty to get by for a while and leaves me with some extra to hand out to people I see who forgot their bags.

You mean you're going to buy them to take to the store? Why not just reusable bags for the store, and those for home uses (doggy bag, trash liner, etc.)? It would be a good investment that saves money over time.

[pmiranda]

We just leave a couple fabric bags in the car all the time so they're handy. Most of them were free.
We were worried we'd run out of grocery bags for dog and cat cleanup but we've mostly switched to using the plastic bags you get from the grocery store deli, cereal bags, and stuff like that. Haven't run out yet and usually have to recycle more of them than we can use, like dry cleaning bags and the plastic wrap on stuff from Costco.

[gpurcell]

City Council's not going to know what hits them when this goes into effect. A stupid, stupid ordinance.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by gpurcell

City Council's not going to know what hits them when this goes into effect. A stupid, stupid ordinance.

This has been in effect in many other cities for a long time. It hasn't really been a big deal anywhere. People adapt. The sky is not falling.

[gpurcell]

Absolutely wrong, OpenD. In SF, for example, you can buy paper bags. This was an ignorant overstep based upon utterly shoddy data. There was absolutely no reason to ban paper bags.

Edit: and it most certainly is not in "many other cities."

[Austinite101]

Originally Posted by gpurcell

Absolutely wrong, OpenD. In SF, for example, you can buy paper bags. This was an ignorant overstep based upon utterly shoddy data. There was absolutely no reason to ban paper bags.

Edit: and it most certainly is not in "many other cities."

I most certainly is in effect in many other cities and counties. Nearly a hundred from what I know. Perhaps even more that I'm not aware of. Austin is just one of the larger, more visible cities to do it.

Also, there are plenty of exemptions to the ban that allows for paper bags instead.

[atxcio]

I asked the other day at the Westlake HEB on 360, and they said they are not getting rid of the plastic bags... I kind of figured for a big company like HEB, they would go ahead and make the change at all the area stores regardless of whether they are in the city limits or just across the border (seems like it would be easier). But no.

Off topic, but I'm really beginning to dislike HEB. They used to be so good about service and prices, now it's all over the place. Expired stuff on the shelves. Prices ringing up wrong. And their produce section is being reduced. They stopped carrying any kind of sprouts, company-wide supposedly. Bean sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, everything. You just can't get it there anymore.

If the Westlake Randalls goes with reusable-only policy, I'll be dropping HEB for good and just shopping at Randalls.