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Mine go in the laundry with the kitchen linens as soon as I unload the groceries. Because I take powerful immunosuppressants every day of my life, there's not a snowball's chance I would risk it. I just got back from the store, and there's a load of reusable bags ready to go into the washer as I write this post. If anyone ever swabbed my bags, they'd find that they are clean.
The reason the saying is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle in that order is because reducing is the most important step. If you have to use the packaging, then recycling is better than nothing, but using and recycling the bag takes more resources than never using the bag in the first place.
The plastic of some of my older (5-10 years) reusable woven plastic bags is starting to break down, but you can bet I'll recycle them. I just won't shirk my responsibility by pretending recycling negates using the packaging.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140
We prefer plastic, because they are reusable for other things like the others, but also, our supermarket has a place to recycle them. Just the other day I tried paper and the darned thing fell apart on the way home in the trunk. We have cloth bags but only use them when shopping in one nearby city that has banned plastic and charges for paper. It seems that they are a often source of bacteria, and many are not really washable. Most of our food shopping is the monthly trip to Costco for $200-300. They don't offer bags, and we don't get boxes, just pack it all into the back of the car. They do offer recyclable plastic bags for items like fresh meat that might drip.
How are your cloth bags not really washable? Are your underpants washable enough for you to feel comfortable reusing them?
If you don't use cloth bags because you're worried about bacteria and refuse to wash them, hiw do you cope without a handbag, keys, phone or money? Because those are crawling with pathogens.
It's ridiculous overkill to wash them after every use. What danger is a box of pasta going to transfer to a jar of olives? You just need to wash anything that's had raw meat in it, then wash everything else every so often. Or if you're really concerned about meat juices, put the meats in a plastic bag.
Those reusable bags are filthy. They've been tested and are breeding grounds for listeria and E. coli. And people who say they're washing them after every visit are lying (hence, the findings after random checks). Just like the checkout counters and the carts, all it takes is a package of raw meat.
Yuck.
Yeah, nice try. Actually, those studies are of people who never washed their bags, ever. In that article they also mentioned 97 percent of people hadn't ever washed their shopping bags.
If you lived in farm country, as I do, and saw the number of plastic bags rolling around in the crop fields in the most obscure, unpopulated places, you'd never use plastic bags again. Ick.
Just use cloth tote bags, how hard is that? I have about 8 that I use depending on where they are at any given moment.
And to pick up cat/dog poop waste, since it can't be composted, I just use biodegradable bags made from corn. So I use a product made from what I produce! I also use those bags for my general trash bags that go to the dump.
Easy peasy. Use cloth bags and/or bags made from biogdegradable plant sources and you won't be guilty of trashing up America's farmland.
It's ridiculous overkill to wash them after every use. What danger is a box of pasta going to transfer to a jar of olives? You just need to wash anything that's had raw meat in it, then wash everything else every so often. Or if you're really concerned about meat juices, put the meats in a plastic bag.
My reusable bags include those used for produce and bulk goods, so I do wash them every time without fail.
A store I go to has small bags for 0.69 cents and now I have four in my car when shopping.
They have their store name on then so I cannot carry them back inside w/o them trying to charge me again at the register so I just get things in the plastic bag and at my car will separate items into my store bought bags to carry into the house.
As for produce or meat items will just double the bags I just emptied to throw away at home.
Use the same purchased bags at any other store/mkt I go to.
Having been in the Grocery trade recall where a chain store had a round container close to the front door for people to dispose their plastic bags or for the Recycle term of the day.
After closing time a box boy would empty the container contents into the trash dumpster outside the stores back door.......Reason being that their was a chance that they could be carrying ROACHES.
As for the ROACH bit a Liquor store client told me of a woman customer who would bring back the PAPER bags used for small Liquor/Beer purchases. He said that one time he saw a Roach in the bags so he threw them out in to the back dumpster.
Legally he could NOT REUSE them anyway. Same thing holds for any Plastic bags.
Many of the reusable bags sold at the grocery stores (and elsewhere) are woven recycled plastic+stronger plastic fibers woven together. They are not cloth as most would consider it.
Many of them are poorly reinforced where the handles connect to the bag, and will rip if you actually try to walk home with them as opposed to them only holding groceries from check out to car to home. (Happened to me with an insulated bag that was barely a few weeks old--and the contents were not heavy, nor was the bag overpacked.)
Many of them are also cheaply constructed in general, so they can and do leak if you don't bag meat, or the seams start to split before more than a handful of uses. Washing them can be difficult because unlike an actual cloth bag, they are semi or completely non permable with liquids, depending on construction. Especially the insulated bags that have the cover + insulation layer, so you can't be sure you're getting all of whatever washed in them out since the ones we had you could not remove the liner to wash it separate.
We started using the plastic woven ones, but after the issues became apparent we use actual cloth or sturdy canvas bags which are easy to wash. We try to keep a few in the car at all times in case we decide to stop for something while we're out last minute. If we forget them, we try our best not to take either paper or plastic (sometimes drippy meat requires the plastic between--I've started trying to find a work around for this), and just go from cart to car to home.
We recently bought some produce bags online (one cotton mesh, the rest cotton cloth with a pull close cord), which have been great.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Bagu
{snip}They have their store name on then so I cannot carry them back inside w/o them trying to charge me again at the register so I just get things in the plastic bag and at my car will separate items into my store bought bags to carry into the house.
If there is more than one cashier trying to charge you for those bags more than once, and you've taken the tags off--go complain to the store's Customer Service. You shouldn't have to go through all those hoops.
If you lived in farm country, as I do, and saw the number of plastic bags rolling around in the crop fields in the most obscure, unpopulated places, you'd never use plastic bags again.
I'm calling BS on this one. I have lived in the backwoods of Maine for 3 years now, and have never seen a one. I also travel around farming country as I raise poultry and piglets, and again, I have never seen any such thing. It may differ where you live, but the idea that these plastic bags are all "blowin' in the wind" throughout the pristine countryside, is false.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LilyLeftTheValley
Many of them are poorly reinforced where the handles connect to the bag, and will rip if you actually try to walk home with them as opposed to them only holding groceries from check out to car to home.
This is true, and the reason why we do not use the paper bags any longer. Some cashier tried to shame my wife into switching from plastic to paper, and when I brought the groceries in the house for her, the handle CAME OFF on one bag with jars in it, which broke on the concrete. Needless to say, no more paper bags. She reuses the plastic ones, anyway.
We have our own way of dealing with the issue: we grow/raise our own food!
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