Plastic Bags Could Be A Thing Of The Past

The Vancouver Sun ^ | January 25, 2008 | By Tiffany Crawford

[shiva]

Guess I’ll have to burn my fall leaves./sar

[DakotaGator]

When asked at checkout; “Paper or plastic?”, I always tell them “Plastic. I want to destroy the world!” All laugh. Maybe a third of them understand.

Now I have a new idea; “Plastic. Securely placed over a watermelon’s head.” Good immediate use. And the implications are endless.

[Ditter]

You think Texas doesn’t have any trees? I can see you have never traveled in Texas, we have miles and miles and MILES of trees. We also have signs that read [DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS] which means don’t throw your trash out of your car window. But she/he didn’t say she had never seen a tree, she/he has never seen a plastic bag in a tree and I don’t seen very much of that myself.

[Caramelgal]

Personally I would be glad to see paper bags come back, especially the heavy ones with handles. I hate those plastic bags.

For one thing, groceries are harder to pack in plastic bags and they don’t hold as much as paper bags. And I count how many times I’ve gotten home to find some of my groceries have rolled out because the bags don’t stand up and are slippery and tend to slide and roll around (in the back of my gas guzzling SUV of course – maybe this would happen if I drove a hybrid Prius ;), ).

I do save some plastic bags and use them for garbage and for packing my lunch but paper bags can serve the same purpose and they all get thrown away eventually. And since it takes more plastic bags to bag the same amount of groceries than can fit into paper bags, I end up throwing many of the plastic bags away.

My mother used paper grocery bags for a lot of things before recycling was cool (we weren’t green back then – we were just poor) – she made book covers for my school books, used them for gift wrapping paper and used them to drain and absorb fat off of fried foods and for cooling cookies on. My mother also recycled my father’s old undershirts as dust and cleaning rags.

And one time I unknowingly ran over a plastic grocery bag and it got stuck to my exhaust system. I pulled over because I suddenly smelled a burning plastic smell so bad, I thought my car was on fire. I went to my mechanic and he found the bag had melted to the manifold and tail pipe. He pulled off as much as he could but I was stuck with that nauseating smell for weeks.

I also hate some of the plastic packaging that requires you to have heavy duty industrial scissors or a utility knife just to open.

Then again I’m old enough to remember as a kid when milk was delivered to our doorstep in glass bottles and we went to the butcher shop to buy our meats who wrapped meat in “butcher’s paper” so maybe I’m just getting old and cranky.

[goodnesswins]

No, I’ve only been to Dallas and Houston....so, you’re right, haven’t seen many trees.....and am jealous of your sunshine! Maybe you have neater folks than we do here, also....LOL.

[Ditter]

I remember mother using worn out clothes and towels for cleaning rags before paper towels or at least before we had them. It was called the “rag bag” and every garment was used until there was nothing left of it.

[Ditter]

I live in Houston and we have lots of trees, native and planted. Huge pine trees in the north part of Houston (Kingwood area all the way to Arkansas) should have made you feel at home. I have been to Washington and it is beautiful, the eastern part of your state was pretty barren as I recall.

I don’t know if we have neater folks maybe just better clean up crews. I know I saw a beer can on my front side walk that I haven’t picked up yet.

[jonrick46]

"Just remember to wash them thoroughly before putting your groceries in them>"

Very good point! The groceries that are put in them are not sterile. They have been handled by dirty hands that are checking lables and comparing prices. I can imagine someone walking into a supermarket with unwashed hands that just pumped out someones septic tank. All these groceries that go into these cloth bags leave a residue which will be picked up on you next batch of groceries. If these bags don't get washed, they can turn them into a petri dish of disease which will soon wind up in your cupboards.

[Turret Gunner A20]

Solution to it all — buy a truck and a shovel. Dump everything in the back of the truck, shovel it out when you get home and make the ma and the kids pick it up and put it where it belongs. If you ain’t got no kid, you’re in trouble — you and ma better get busy.

[steelyourfaith]

~~AGW ™ ping~~

[olivia3boys]

And paper doesn’t keep the burgers hot like styrofoam!

My favorite McD’s burger, the “Hot and Tasty” or whatever it was called in the 80s, “kept the cool side cool and the hot side hot”—so crisp lettuce and cool tomatoes on the hot burger; but when styrofoam had to go the burger had to go too.

[Alberta's Child]

LOL. This is a public relations bonanza for the retail industry.

They get to eliminate plastic bags as a cost-saving measure (make no mistake about it -- this is the REAL motivation behind this whole trend, especially in light of the fact that rising oil prices have enormous implications for the price of plastic materials), and then claim that it's all part of a "go green" movement.

[Wonder Warthog]

"For most of my life we got along just fine with brown paper bags of varying sizes including little ones for little items. "

Ah, yes---those wonderful days of yore, when condensation from frozen products weakened the paper, and the bottom dropped out as you were trying to get from car to house. Or, when the extremely weak paper bag "just tore" and accomplished the same spillage of groceries.

No thinks, I prefer plastic. And if you actually look into the statistics, plastic bags are "less bad" for the environment because they take less energy to make, and take up less space in the landfill.

This is just one more attempt to introduce "Euro-think" into the US.

[Wonder Warthog]

See post 74.

[cva66snipe]

Watch for Walmart within two years to adopt this policy as well. Of course they will have a cloth bag {where their logo in huge letters} to sell you at a price. Their CEO won’t be able to help himself like he wasn’t on the lightbulbs either.

[ol' hoghead]

carry a plastic sandwich bag. fold the bag back over your hand so the bag is inside out. after you pick up pups poop,
just pull the edge down from your wrist so the bag is right side out. you never have to touch the poop. zip lock bags work well, also.

[Dyslexic Mom]

My favorite ‘plastic or paper’ story is what occured to me and my kids some 18yrs ago on a quick run in the store for a gallon of milk, a bunch of bananas and a package of (horrors!) disposible diapers. At the checkout, the dingy cashier put the bananas in one of those hated/disgusting plastic bags and basically turned her back to us, sighing like her job was just so stressful she now needed a nap. I looked at the milk -with a handle, the diapers -with a handle, the bag of bananas -with a flimsy handle, and my less than a year old son -no handle. The well behaved daughter of about 6 could be trusted to hold onto the shouldered purse strap and stick with me. Yes, I could have grabbed a cart put everything in it (I had used one of their little hand held baskets that she then confiscated from me) and wheeled it out to the car, then wheeled the cart back to the store (no cart returns then and I always brought my cart back) then carried my not quite toddler back to the car as my daughter trudged carefully along with me(I never put my kids in until I was ready to get in and drive off), but I just saw red. I knew it could be done if the silly girl had a brain in her head. I tried not to snap her head off and REQUESTED one of those horrid paper bags. She gives me this ‘who do you think you are’ look, but coughs one up. I put the milk in the bottom, stood the diaper pack on it’s end and slid it in, then dropped the bananas (after taking it out of that silly plastic bag- leaving it laying for her to deal with)on top of the milk. I grabed the STURDY bag in the crook of my free arm, told Steph to grab onto my purse, looked (I’m sure with some disgust) at the girl and told her, “I have two kids and two arms, not five.” She just looked confused. I knew then that she’d never get it...

[packrat35]

She said she would question why she had to give customers a bag even for the tiniest item. It was then on a trip to Coles Bay in Tasmania that she became really passionate about doing something about the problem.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C S Lewis

[packrat35]

Yes they are and they still refuse to accept that actions have consequences such as the attempt to ban the common light bulb and replace with fluorescent that contain MERCURY. Or the groundwater pollution due to the gasoline additive out west that was supposed to cut down on auto pollution.