# ECO Friendly Tip



## Jace (May 13, 2022)

Bring your own bag...shopping.

We all know that we should  be bringing our own bags to the grocery store.

Do you?


(And, yes..I do!)


Earth Day is Every Day!


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## RubyK (May 13, 2022)

Yes.


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## win231 (May 13, 2022)

Here in Los Angeles, we're not required to bring our own bags, but they imposed a charge for the store's bags - usually 10 cents.
I use insulated bags I got online.


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## Jules (May 13, 2022)

Yes, have done for years.


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## Em in Ohio (May 18, 2022)

Woe is me.  Since I get my groceries delivered, they come in heavy plastic bags and the stores won't reuse them.  I do, however, repurpose them.  They came in handy for bagging things for shoppers at our yard sale, but that is no solution.


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## win231 (May 18, 2022)

Em in Ohio said:


> Woe is me.  Since I get my groceries delivered, they come in heavy plastic bags and the stores won't reuse them.  I do, however, repurpose them.  They came in handy for bagging things for shoppers at our yard sale, but that is no solution.


I find them useful for kitchen trash - especially wet stuff that I want to take outside to the trash right away, like watermelon & pineapple rinds, etc. heavy bottles & cans.


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## Em in Ohio (May 18, 2022)

win231 said:


> I find them useful for kitchen trash - especially wet stuff that I want to take outside to the trash right away, like watermelon & pineapple rinds, etc. heavy bottles & cans.


Yes - definitely good for the cans which I now have for the first time.  I never liked metal cans, but the dog gets canned food and canned pumpkin puree, so I now have to deal with them.  I reuse my glass coffee jars for food storage. Also, I use old mayo jars for meat scrap holding and cooking oil in the freezer until full (things that I can't compost.)  The fruit and veggie scraps go into the dog's biodegradable poop bags and get tossed on the back hill as fertilizer.  What I really hate most is the one gallon milk jugs.  Really wish they could be made biodegradable or that we could get milk in refillable glass bottles like in my youth.  /-;


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## HoneyNut (May 18, 2022)

I had bought some reuseable bags pre-covid, but had trouble remembering to take them.  During pandemic I did grocery-pickup which came in really nice tough plastic bags that have been very useful while bagging up all my moving trash because a lot of it is hard with corners so the tough bags keep the trash from ripping through the trash bags.
I read that we need to reuse our same reuseable bag 10,000 times each to make them no worse than plastic to the environment.  I cannot imagine getting that many uses out of a bag, so I've decided to just keep accepting the flimsy little plastic bags the store uses, especially since I reuse them in trash cans and for cleaning the cat litter box and I'd probably wind up buying litter pan liners and more trash bags if I didn't get the little store bags.


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## Jace (May 18, 2022)

HoneyNut said:


> flimsy little plastic bags


And, they seem to be getting flimsier &flimsier...that you have to double bag..
What's the point...double waste!
Really _"gets me"_


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## WheatenLover (May 18, 2022)

Jace said:


> Bring your own bag...shopping.


My groceries are delivered. Aldi uses boxes and paper bags, which I either re-use or recyle. My pantry shelves are full of the boxes because it is cheaper to use them than to buy containers to hold like foods. 

Walmart uses plastic bags, which I re-use in the house, but they get thrown away since they are banned from recycling here. Glass is banned, too, which happened during the last few years.


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## Jeni (May 18, 2022)

I started using my own bags years ago through the pandemic when they did not want to touch your bags i had cashier put items back into cart and bagged my own by my car....
i hear things every day about good and bad have to use so many times/ are dirty needs to be washed more often etc 
Bottom line for me is less bags because my reusable carry 3 times as each of the plastics ... i find the "new" plastic thicker and less user friendly all over along road and left in parks / trails ...ZERO improvement over the thin plastic we used to use... and they cost 8 cents per bag except if you are on foodstamps then they are free..... explain that to me ..... 
the charge per bag  was suppose to be about reducing and encouraging reusable.  

when i buy one or two items and do not use a bag they seem to want to stop and scan my reciept guess people who walk out with arms full were assuming stores would assume they were just eco friendly not using bags but in general were shoplifting in plain sight.....


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## Jules (May 18, 2022)

Jeni said:


> cashier put items back into cart


@StarSong  mentioned this too.  They wouldn’t fill our own bags or set anything into the plastic boxes IN the shopping cart.  A couple of stores wouldn’t even allow me to have my boxes in their carts so I could load them up.  We were expected to fill our own bags or set our own groceries into the cart.  They were fine with providing the plastic bags for free and they’d fill them.


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## Tish (May 18, 2022)

I always do.


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## Jeni (May 18, 2022)

Jules said:


> @StarSong  mentioned this too.  They wouldn’t fill our own bags or set anything into the plastic boxes IN the shopping cart.  A couple of stores wouldn’t even allow me to have my boxes in their carts so I could load them up.  We were expected to fill our own bags or set our own groceries into the cart.  They were fine with providing the plastic bags for free and they’d fill them.


what i found funny in whole process was one day they could NOT even touch bags and two days later they could and my state started ADS saying take your bags with you since their new fee for bag / bag reduction law had been postponed through out pandemic...

went shopping on a Saturday and bagged my own .... but monday they could touch them ..... definantely NOT about health or contagious things...


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## StarSong (May 19, 2022)

Jeni said:


> what i found funny in whole process was one day they could NOT even touch bags and two days later they could and my state started ADS saying take your bags with you since their new fee for bag / bag reduction law had been postponed through out pandemic...
> 
> went shopping on a Saturday and bagged my own .... but monday they could touch them ..... definantely NOT about health or contagious things...


When the research demonstrated that Covid was nearly always transmitted through the air and rarely by contact, stores again permitted outside bags and cut down their practices of endlessly disinfecting everything.  

When we know better, we do better.


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## win231 (May 19, 2022)

Em in Ohio said:


> Yes - definitely good for the cans which I now have for the first time.  I never liked metal cans, but the dog gets canned food and canned pumpkin puree, so I now have to deal with them.  I reuse my glass coffee jars for food storage. Also, I use old mayo jars for meat scrap holding and cooking oil in the freezer until full (things that I can't compost.)  The fruit and veggie scraps go into the dog's biodegradable poop bags and get tossed on the back hill as fertilizer.  What I really hate most is the one gallon milk jugs.  Really wish they could be made biodegradable or that we could get milk in refillable glass bottles like in my youth.  /-;


Glass is nice - when we're young.  Now that I'm old & sometimes drop things, I appreciate plastic.


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## JonSR77 (May 19, 2022)

Law just changed in NJ.  We have to.  No choice.  It's now the law.


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## win231 (May 19, 2022)

Jules said:


> @StarSong  mentioned this too.  They wouldn’t fill our own bags or set anything into the plastic boxes IN the shopping cart.  A couple of stores wouldn’t even allow me to have my boxes in their carts so I could load them up.  We were expected to fill our own bags or set our own groceries into the cart.  They were fine with providing the plastic bags for free and they’d fill them.


Maybe they listened to this doctor/idiot:   (Yes, he's a real MD)


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## StarSong (May 19, 2022)

win231 said:


> Maybe they listened to this doctor/idiot:   (Yes, he's a real MD)


This guy was roundly denounced as soon as this video came out.  Not all MDs are as smart as we'd expect.


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## Jules (May 19, 2022)

Today I did a pickup order at Walmart.  You’re instructed to bring your own bags. They bring the items out in bins, no bags, and then you and the helper pack your car.  I have small plastic bins in the back.  It’s a good service.


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## HoneyNut (May 19, 2022)

Jules said:


> They bring the items out in bins, no bags, and then you and the helper pack your car. I have small plastic bins in the back.


But then what do you line your little trash cans with and what do you use when you clean a litterbox?


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## StarSong (May 19, 2022)

Jules said:


> Today I did a pickup order at Walmart.  You’re instructed to bring your own bags. They bring the items out in bins, no bags, and then you and the helper pack your car.  I have small plastic bins in the back.  It’s a good service.


I do the same with Walmart. 


HoneyNut said:


> But then what do you line your little trash cans with and what do you use when you clean a litterbox?


I don't line any of my trash cans.  I wash them as needed, which isn't very often.  Kitchen scraps go in a little bowl by my sink, then get emptied into the proper compost recycling bin.

No cat so no litter box.


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## Jules (May 19, 2022)

HoneyNut said:


> But then what do you line your little trash cans with and what do you use when you clean a litterbox?


We buy a box of 100 white bags at Costco.  They fit our bin perfectly.  We use one per week.  

No kitty, no litter.  You could train your kitty to use the toilet.


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