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For the people who don't use plastic bags - doesn't it make a mess when you line your garbage can with a paper bag?
Growing up we lined our kitchen trash bins with paper bags (from supermarket usually), and recall it was always a mess. As we kids were charged with taking out the trash as part of our chores we dreaded if the thing was wet, leaking, etc... And they often were.
To cut down having to hose/clean out the garbage cans Dad began buying plastic bags. A bit later they were on the shopping list for both inside and out side garbage bags.
Truth to tell hated paper "shopping" bags and if you watch television programs or commercials from late as 1970's or so you know why; the things leaded, ripped, busted open, etc... My mom would always instruct the checkout at supermarket to "double bag", and anything that sweated like ice cream, meats, etc.. usually were put in a separate plastic bag first.
Then as now paper bags have to be doubled for strength (TJ's and Whole Foods do this routinely), so where the savings lie I don't know.
That plus as noted using paper bags for garbage means you need to watch what goes into them or.....
Finally don't like paper shopping bags because it is one of the main ways roaches hitch a ride into your home. Soon after we switched to plastic for garbage bags my Mom wouldn't have paper shopping bags in the house. Once whatever that came in them was unpacked, they were usually tossed unless there was an immediate use.
For the people who don't use plastic bags - doesn't it make a mess when you line your garbage can with a paper bag?
I use the plastic bags from delivery if I have any, paper bags also from shopping if they hand them by default or I can’t fit it into my canvas bag for non-kitchen and non-bathroom use, and I have a box of compostable bags otherwise. Compostable bags are biodegradeable by default (and more!), and since I don’t treasure my garbage, I’m okay if they break down eventually.
If there’s enough of an industry for compostable bags such as through legislation like this, then the market wil react through economies of scale and incentivized innovation so I welcome this.
I re-use plastic bags for garbage: line the bathroom/bedroom cans with them and have a neat gadget from Amazon to hang them, keeping the top open, for kitchen garbage. I also use them for scooping the cat box. Sometimes if the bedroom one is neat trash, I just dump it in the one in the kitchen and keep using the same old bag, usually one in a color I like.
I always take paper over plastic, given the option, and use those bags for my paper recycling, to keep it all together. I also use them if I (rarely) fry something like chicken or plantains, because they absorb grease fine. My first mother in law used to just toss her chicken right into the bag without even flattening it or anything.
That said, I also think the checkout people give you way too many plastic bags and I end up taking bunches of them back and stuffing them in the bin - which goes nowhere. They bundle them up and don't do anything with them, which is criminal. They should be biodegradable.
I've also been to crafty things that will show you how to make them into things like (ha ha, not kidding here) shopping bags, but sturdier ones and you can make temporary and pretty decent doormats. I'd rather the stores give me cloth bags and when I got a house full of them and brought them back to stuff in the recycling bin, they could be washed and re-used. I'd pay a quarter for a cloth bag, especially if I got 10 cents back for recycling it when it was dirty.
What is wrong with you? I understand your desire to maintain your freedoms but plastic bags take many years to break down. If anything you should give a damn about your kids' future.
No all of us have children so we don't need to think about their future.
I not only use plastic bags, but I think the move to ban this is WRONG. Thank you for the post - I'll send a another note to the senators.
I don't understand why people don't realize this: We need to reduce the use of them, but to ban them simple ends up with people buying plastic bags, and providing more profit to companies.
By the way, just to show you how responsive your elected officials are - I believe I've written to Hoylman three times, with not the slightest response.
Yeah why can't they make them more bio-degradeable?
They can, but there’s little market incentive as the current process for making plastic bags as we hae them now is immediately cheaper partially because it has a larger supply, manufacturing, and distribution chain. So either we have policy putting pressure on this or incentivizing alternatives, or things get so bad that socially our perceptions and buying patterns change (which may itself lead to policy change), or a much cheaper alternative that just so happens to be less polluting comes along.
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