Plastic Bag Manufacture is a $Billion Dollar Industry...

[Junkdrawer]

Plastic grocery bags draw increasing fire

The inevitable question faced by shoppers at the grocery checkout, how to tote their food home, may soon get simpler.

Faced with a growing push in some states and cities to ban or limit use of plastic bags, many grocers are encouraging consumers to recycle bags or bring their own. At least one, Whole Foods Market Inc., plans to do away with the bags altogether.

But many grocers report that about 90 percent of their shoppers still ask for plastic.

And the bag makers, a billion-dollar industry, oppose bans, calling instead for consumers to reuse or recycle the bags. They favor recent legislation that encourages the recycling of bags but doesn't ban them outright.

Plastic bags have a split personality: They draw shoppers with their durability and light weight, but environmentalists consider them a scourge, tangled in tree branches or swirling in waterways where they can be scarfed up by unsuspecting aquatic creatures.

....


http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.plastic09feb09,0,7334314.story

Who knew? :shrug:

[blondeatlast]

1. Behind my house, in a government area behind a fence,

there's been a single plastic bag stuck on a rock or plant for over a year. I've tried repeatedly to reach it to get it out of my sight but it's impossible. It hasn't decomposed a bit, either.

I despise plastic bags and frequently and never use them. Lately, more an more people behind me in line at the grocery/drug/etc, are mentioning my reusable bags and saying they will do the same.

Let's just hope.

[Junkdrawer]

2. I just removed one from an upper branch in a tree outside my house last week...

They're EVERYWHERE.

[liberal N proud]

3. When I was a kid and worked in the local grocery store

we reused boxes the goods shipped in.
Cut the top off the box, place the goods on the shelf, put the goods back in the box as they are sold.

That was a small operation in the 70's

People today would be mortified if they were handed a box with their groceries on the way out of the store


We recently purchased a couple of reusable cloth bags, my company gave us one that makes 3 and one of the local grocery chains provides discounts to those who recycle or bring their own bags.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

4. Ikea has started charging for plastic bags

You can bring your own or buy more durable bags there, but no more free plastic bags. From what I have seen, this is pretty common in Europe now, too.

Meijer (a grocery store chain) now sells nice canvas bags for $1 each. We bought four, and use them whenever we shop now.

[Junkdrawer]

5. Something needs to be done to break up the status quo...

If this hits poor people hard, then perhaps there should be donation/recycle stations in stores.

[jemsan]

7. Costco doesn't even have them at all. They reuse boxes or they will sell you an

inexpensive reusable bag Used to hear people grumble but now you even hear a few "oh that's a good idea"

[knitter4democracy]

15. I love my Meijers bags.

They're awesome! They're lasting better than the Whole Foods bags, too.

[MadHound]

6. We need to get away from these damn things, and go to reusable cloth, preferable hemp bags

I live twenty miles out from an urban center, but we have bags(and other lightweight garbage) that is literally carried here on the wind from that urban center. Nor is it uncommon, generally any land larger than five acres has at least one bag land somewhere on that area once a month.

Besides, this is just more petroleum wasted. Go to cloth, reusable bags would be much friendlier on the environment.

[jemsan]

8. I've used reusable bags for almost 20 years and have estimated ..

I've saved about 14,000 plastic or paper bags. Trader Joe's has really cool bags for regular items, great insulated bags for frozen stuff and now they have a cloth six pack holder for their wine! I give them as gifts and people generally love them. I used to get really strange looks when I used my cloth bags but I think the time has come to do away with disposable paper and plastic.

[gollygee]

9. Who could have guessed that bag manufacturers wouldn't want them banned?

was that sentence really necessary. LOL

[Junkdrawer]

10. I didn't realize just how big a business it was...

On later reflection, it's obvious.

Say 100 million people "buy" 20 bags per week at $.02 a pop.

That's over 2 billion in sales.

AND over 104 billion bags.

[DemoTex]

11. Witches' Britches.

Whole Foods, for one, is phasing them out. I applaud that. At Publix I am asked, "Is plastic OK?", to which I now reply, "Hell, no! Do you know what those are called in Britain? Witches Britches!"

I use small mesh tote bags (made from 80% post-consumer recycled plastic) that Whole Foods is now selling for 99¢/each. Then I get 10¢/each off my bill at checkout whenever I use them. That means they pay for themselves in 10 visits to WF. I also use them at other stores, including Publix and Costco.

I have a big canvas tote bag in the back of my Prius that will hold three or four of the small bags, which is perfect for getting the groceries from the car to the kitchen. And another thing I like about this arrangement: if you can lift it, the bag will safely hold whatever is in it. I can carry in three small totes what the Publix bagger would use 10-12 plastic bags for, because of bag strength concerns.

[Junkdrawer]

12. Kick

:kick:

[SoCalDem]

13. I have three clothesbaskets in my trunk

Just put the stuff back into a basket and into the baskets..Much easier to carry in, than those hand cutting handles of the paper bags you have to hug all the way into the house...

[Rosemary2205]

14. Ya, just TRY recycling them suckers.

The recyclers are few and overloaded with MANY more bags than they can ever get recycled - and the aftermarket for the product isn't there because of expense.

Recycling and reuse isn't going to catch on until it becomes the cheaper alternative.

[knitter4democracy]

16. Our local bakery outlet reuses bags.

I take old ones there, and they use them to put everything in.

[knitter4democracy]

17. Reusable bags, reusing plastic, all that's great as long as we make it easier on the poor.

I'm not okay with charging people so they stop using new plastic bags. That's not okay for someone who's having trouble paying their food bill as it is. Making reusable bags free to the poor makes a lot more sense to me, even though storage and all is still an issue.

[MasonJar]

18. As often as I can, I do not take a bag. The more times other shoppers see

someone else refuse bags the more likely they are to refuse them also. I also so have one cloth bag. The real need is the elimination of bags, both plastic and paper. Our resources are limited and the garbage dump in the Pacific is no longer the size of Texas; the latest report says it is the size of the entire USofA, which is the main culprit in its creation.