Which is better in your opinion?

[ValveAdmin]

Old fashioned brown paper grocery sacks, or the new plastic bags?

I can see some positives on both, and a couple of negatives for the plastic bags.

How about you?

 

[pellicle]

I've used the same smallish backpack for over 12years and have a nylon bag folded and stored in a side pocket in case.
I prefer the reuse of "reduce reuse recycle"
Mostly I go shopping on my motorcycle or electric scooter anyway, so. Backpack is essential.

 

[LondonAndy]

It is very rare to get paper grocery sacks here in the UK, and there is a mandatory charge per plastic bag of a minimum 10p each to encourage recycling, though there are a small number of exceptions. Therefore heavy duty "bag for life" plastic bags are common.

Other supermarkets are available

 

[pellicle]

It is very rare to get paper grocery sacks here in the UK, and there is a mandatory charge per plastic bag of a minimum 10p each to encourage recycling, though there are a small number of exceptions. Therefore heavy duty "bag for life" plastic bags are common.

View attachment 889091

Other supermarkets are available

Do they have those Elephants in White too?

 

[carolinemc]

Old fashioned brown paper grocery sacks, or the new plastic bags?

I can see some positives on both, and a couple of negatives for the plastic bags.

How about you?

I love the plastic reusable bags, but I also use the other reusable bags that you can wash and reuse.

 

[epstns]

We keep a stack of reusable shopping bags in the cars. When we travel, we take them (a few) with us. I do keep a stock of the "disposable" plastic store bags up in my home office, as the bin there is specifically built to use those bags for tossable trash.

As popular as the reusable shopping bags have become, they will never see great use among dog walkers. . .

 

[pellicle]

As popular as the reusable shopping bags have become, they will never see great use among dog walkers. . .

sometimes things just should be single use ;-)

A (US based) friend of mine occasionally sends me pictures of (what I at first thought were deflated balloons) bio-degradable bags of dog droppings left in a bag on the side of hiking trails.

So thoughtful to make them bio-degradable

 

[ValveAdmin]

I just remember the large brown paper grocery bags used to wrap our school books to keep the covers nice so they would be good when turned in at end of year. Or wrapping packages in to ship/mail. I do use the reusable bags from grocery stores to carry all manner of things, and even use them at the grocery store.

 

[Carnelian]

Paper bags. Easier to be recycled and may be used for garbage.
Environmentalists say neither one. Use cloth bags.

 

[carolinemc]

I take 25 mg twice a day. I was often short of breath before my heart trouble, probably due to asthma or allergy. Generally, I am in good health according to my lab reports...but I tire very easily, walking flights of stairs leaves me out of breath. Walking is boring to me and tiring. So many of the side effects are common to lots of drugs or even without taking anything. Depression, fatigue very common. I am in my seventies, so energy dwindles. I get no answers from doctors because they don't know.

Could you explain if that is a medication that is 25 mg twice and what it is, here on the page we are discussing paper bags. So sorry about the shortness of breath from your heart condition. For when we have heart problems, we all have breathing problems like shortness of breath and fatigue. I have depression from Diabetes type 2 and having heart issues. PC doctors do not know much. You need a cardiologist and one that will listen and help you. I hope you will look for one.

 

[ValveAdmin]

I take 25 mg twice a day. I was often short of breath before my heart trouble, probably due to asthma or allergy. Generally, I am in good health according to my lab reports...but I tire very easily, walking flights of stairs leaves me out of breath. Walking is boring to me and tiring. So many of the side effects are common to lots of drugs or even without taking anything. Depression, fatigue very common. I am in my seventies, so energy dwindles. I get no answers from doctors because they don't know.

I think you meant for this answer to go to a different thread. Did you post it where it was meant to go? If so, I'll just delete this one.

 

[thomas999]

Plastic is a byproduct of petroleum, and paper of course is a byproduct of trees. Do we cut down more trees to make paper bags or do we use plastic that comes from petroleum and eventually pollute the environment with the waste. Probably the best way to do things is to continue to reuse over and over and over again products, but we are a spoiled Society and many don't care about the future, just to here and now.

 

[carolinemc]

I think you meant for this answer to go to a different thread. Did you post it where it was meant to go? If so, I'll just delete

 

[Carnelian]

I think you meant for this answer to go to a different thread. Did you post it where it was meant to go? If so, I'll just delete this one.

Sorry, yes. This belongs in my post about metoprolol!

 

[Carnelian]

I think you meant for this answer to go to a different thread. Did you post it where it was meant to go? If so, I'll just delete this one.

Yes, sorry for the confusion. Please move it to my post in Heart Talk about metoprolol Tartrate.

 

[pellicle]

Hi

I like your thinking here

Plastic is a byproduct of petroleum, and paper of course is a byproduct of trees. Do we cut down more trees to make paper bags or do we use plastic that comes from petroleum and eventually pollute the environment with the waste.

I'm not sure how deep your knowledge goes, and so my answers try not to assume one way or the other, but there are important and deeper questions than just what appears on the surface. So I write this as much for the general readership as as any "answer to you personally".

Firstly with cutting down trees, there are plantation trees and there are virgin forests. These are different in nature and support entirely different habitats. Plantation forests are none the less a "sustainable resource" (just for reference you have no idea how vexing that term is to me, but that's quite the essay which I have no intention to write and its very well covered in "the literature" for anyone who's actually interested).

Japan for instance is well wooded (as BTW is Finland where my wife was born and earned her Masters degree in Forestry) and is a very good balance of native and plantation wooded lands.

This link gives some good data on that (for brevity I'll not cite it here)
https://www.japanfs.org/en/news/archives/news_id027771.html
Finland also is big in paper (being home to #4 paper production company Stora Enso).

What's often missing from this discussion is anything other than CO2 these days (sad if you ask me, that the scope of the problem has been dumbed down to just one indicator). However its conveniently ignored by the public (but well known to industry) that recycling paper has chemical waste issues. I would suggest this reading as a starter on the topic:
https://www.endsreport.com/article/1728384/recycling-creating-toxic-chemical-problem
The simple fact is summarised by weight however; so plastic bags weight a lot less than paper and so per bag there is (as you'd expect) less issue with all the negative by products than paper.

Lastly there is the inevitable end of life, which few countries actually do in a sustainable or responsible way. Many woke folk think that taking their plastic to a "recycling center" actually doe something good. To believe that you'd have to have a narrow view and not delve into what's behind the storefront.

To me (as a summary) I think that only Sweden does the right thing with plastic waste: turn it into energy by burning it. Burning it in well constructed modern furnaces which either destroy any dangerous chemicals (dioxins come immediately to mind) or capture it.

If you think that waste subcontracted to India is properly recycled I suggest you go on a holiday there and find out. Myself I've been there (for business) a few times, often for 3 or 6 months. The feelings after returning from one of those trips is expressed here (although not related to this topic specifically)

http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2008/06/india-why-all-mess.html
So in my view reduce reuse recycle and proper thought put into all aspects (by government if not by individuals). Bad decisions stem from only knowing a small slice of the information pie chart, and we see no end of bad decisions (usually reactive in nature) from government and the woke.

Personal Disclosure: I completed my Research Masters in Environmental Science in 2007 after having been involved in Environmental Education for about 6 years before that.

 

[oo0My_Valve0oo]

Where I live grocery stores switched to plastic. They offered paper for a price.

As a matter of function I prefer paper bags vs. plastic because they have a stronger structure vs. little to none. A plastic bag holds its content in a mass lump. You can stack items in a paper bag.

An aside, when plastic bags are involved (fruit & veg section, potential spillables, etc.) I prefer premium thick clear quality rather than the cheapest thinnest made which also tend to be difficult to open when first pulled off the roll. I know sacrilege not being at least recycled.

I don't like accumulating paper bags. I always collected more than reused, probably my fault. Using a worn old paper bag still has a connotation of being an uptight penny pinching cheapskate as well.

So I bought cloth reusable bags. Then things went backwards to address Covid-19. Reusables were banned. Things are returning to pre-Covid conditions.

My overall preference is using the cloth reusable bags but the Covid experience put attention on keeping them sanitary. Food can leave residue which can collect bacteria. They need routine cleaning. Also, maybe buy multiple designs like different solid colors so you consistently know a history and don't put food in the same bag you put cleanser in weeks earlier.

 

[carolinemc]

Where I live grocery stores switched to plastic. They offered paper for a price.

As a matter of function I prefer paper bags vs. plastic because they have a stronger structure vs. little to none. A plastic bag holds its content in a mass lump. You can stack items in a paper bag.

An aside, when plastic bags are involved (fruit & veg section, potential spillables, etc.) I prefer premium thick clear quality rather than the cheapest thinnest made which also tend to be difficult to open when first pulled off the roll. I know sacrilege not being at least recycled.

I don't like accumulating paper bags. I always collected more than reused, probably my fault. Using a worn old paper bag still has a connotation of being an uptight penny pinching cheapskate as well.

So I bought cloth reusable bags. Then things went backwards to address Covid-19. Reusables were banned. Things are returning to pre-Covid conditions.

My overall preference is using the cloth reusable bags but the Covid experience put attention on keeping them sanitary. Food can leave residue which can collect bacteria. They need routine cleaning. Also, maybe buy multiple designs like different solid colors so you consistently know a history and don't put food in the same bag you put cleanser in weeks earlier.

I use reusable bags, and I was them periodically. So sad when they insist on the change from plastic to save the environment and then switch back to kill the environment. Sad. but there is an idea, bring your reusable and when they pack in the plastic, repack the groceries outside the store and save the plastic and you can recycle them to use as garbage bags. I do that all the time. Good luck.

 

[oo0My_Valve0oo]

Out here there is a chain called Trader Joe's who set up a table right outside the exit door to rebag your groceries during Covid restrictions. I don't recall and it may have been such a quick reflex to opt for paper if they offered a choice of plastic or paper bags. They could not take back the bags they had bagged your stuff in so it only was useful if you had asked them to use a box so it didn't smash together everything. Still wouldn't be able to return the boxes but to some it was a beneficial step to avoid mashing it and being able to put it in their bag with handles. They have now returned to pre-Covid policies.

 

[Protimenow]

I often have my stuff left in the cart. I bag it when I get to my car. Alternatively, I bring my own bags into the store.

I usually use cloth bags for most of my shopping, but occasionally have to resort to store bags (if I forget to take my cloth bags back to the car).

I've seen some occasional articles that talk about how bad for the environment cloth bags are -- growing the plant that the bags are made of, processing the fibers, the 'cloth' may be petroleum-based, and other issues.

There's a very good bakery near me, and it does a lot of business. They use large yellow bags. I wind up with so many of those damned bags that I recycle them, often using them to hold other recyclables. I don't know what others with a similar abundance of these bags do with them.

I'd like to see them set up a bin inside the store where customers can return the bags, presumably for appropriate recycling.

I don't remember my Trader Joe's providing places outside the store for bagging my own items. Maybe this was illegal in L. A. County during the pandemic.

Perhaps the best answer to the 'paper, plastic. cloth. or box' question is to use whatever you choose to use and keep using it until it can't be used anymore. When Pellicle's bike bag begins to fall apart and can no longer be sewn back together, for example, when a bag made out of a worn out pair of jeans (I may actually try to do this) similarly become unusable -- that's the time to retire the item -- environmentally friendly in the extreme.