Found an excellent article that inspired me to purchase and use reusable bags.... Please give it a read....

Paper, Plastic....or BYOB?

I really like bags from One bag at a time for groceries as they have a flat wide bottom, are strong to last a good long time, washable, and in the end recyclable. Have used my set of 10 for 10 months. Reasonable price for $1.99 which in turn you will get back 5-10 cents each use from most grocery stores. Lots more good reading on their site....

For convience we have really found the ReusableBags.com site's ACME bags super....ripstop nylon bag that folds up into little pouch sewn on inner seam to size a bit smaller than a mans wallet. Great to tuck in your purse or glove compartment as needs arise... TONS MORE READING...facts and news related items....great site.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: GreenAlice,

Here is a site someone mentioned as a source for cloth bags. I just received this email from them.

"Thank you for your interest in Texas Jeans. We did in fact used to have a large stock of these bags. We have since opened a small factory outlet store in our plant and sold out of them completely. I do not think we will be making anymore for awhile unfortunatly. The fabric we used is no longer available from the mill we pruchase from. I do apologize for any inconvenience this causes."

Back to the drawing board.


"Without humor there is nothing" Bette Davis & Lauren Bacall

I had an out of state relative buy 25 of the reusable bags for 99 cents each. I resold most to friends at work and kept 6. Started using them for all my grocery trips. Our stores do not yet give a discount, but I feel so Green and GOOD using them, that is payment enough!

KJH....bummer if those were the ones you most wanted but May is tomorrow and hopefully you will find your treasured bags SOON!

Way to go Conrad! Just think if everyone got 5 friends using them....Many stores now seemed to have hopped on the bandwagon with their own versions...Target...TJ MAXX (they called it the IT bag...) It is all good....

GA ~ I will find bags if it takes forever!


"Old age is not for cowards" Lady Bird Johnson

YEAH!!!! May will find KJH a bag lady at last....

GreenAlice ~ It takes such a small amount to make me happy! This has been tough, but I hung in there till I found some bags, with the help of a board buddy. LOL



"Progress not prefection" Bill W

IMO I will be glad that when I need to purchase something at any store I can finally bring my own bag. Wouldn't it be nice not to have to worry about donating your old plastic bags to thrift stores because everyone already had their own bag(s).

DH and I used to have to ask clothing stores to please place our clothing purchases on hangers and talk them into letting us leave without a plastic bag. Over time we ended up with so many hangers we had to donate the extras to charitable thrift stores. It just made sense to us that plastic bags weren't the only thing they could reuse. They were quite glad to recieve them and we were glad we didn't have to toss them in the garbage can.

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here you can buy reuseable cloth bags at any grocery store, and Wally world. I pay 99 cents each.

I have about 20 bags, mostly because I forget to bring them to the store, so I buy more.. what I LOVE about them is you can seriously pack a lot more into them and carry them comfortably. I do use plastic for meat, to prevent drips.

They have a removable flat piece of plastic at the bottom, and the bags can be washed.

Now if I could just remeber to bring them into the store..

If you have a Trader Joe's in your area, they have some really nice reusable bags...they have a big, padded insulated bag, then they have some plasticized ones with handles, and some cloth ones as well. Their prices are pretty reasonable, I think it was $2.99 for the insulated one, and about $1.99 for the others.

Just found these on a blog linked from another HGTV post. These are NOT inexpensive but a neat idea. It seems like someone who sews could do this fairly easily!

Flip and tumble bag

Cloth bag update:

About a week ago after searching high and low locally I ordered cloth bags. What i wanted was plain cotton canvas bags and couldn't seem to find them ANYwhere. The ones I could find locally were really small and wouldn't have been useful at all.

I ordered the shoulder bag from www.clothbag.com Be aware that these aren't cheap bags - but BOY do they appear to be well made. I was really pleased with the size options as well. I got bags that are wider than they are tall so the tipping over in the trunk factor is gone.

I probably went a little crazy but ordered enough for DH car AND mine. Honestly these are large enough that I could have ordered fewer. Probably the shoulder bag size holds the equivalent of 2 paper grocery bags. They say they have a weight limit of 40 lbs per bag.

I have NO affiliation with this company - just wanted to pass on a review of a good product.

I was ready to buy reusable bags, but then I realized I'd have to start buying trash bags. I use my grocery bags as trash can liners.

It seems silly to stop using one kind of bag, and start purchasing another.

Maybe if someone invented a trash can liner that would biodegrade once it was 2 years old...

quote:

Originally posted by hersheygal:
I was ready to buy reusable bags, but then I realized I'd have to start buying trash bags. I use my grocery bags as trash can liners.

It seems silly to stop using one kind of bag, and start purchasing another.

Maybe if someone invented a trash can liner that would biodegrade once it was 2 years old...

Modern sanitary landfills are not giant compost piles. Once the stuff is buried very little degrading happens, the reason is the landfills are compacted so tightly that air can't get to the stuff once it is buried. Without air composting doesn't happen. I have tried composting some of these biodegradeable plastic containers made of corn starch or some such thing, even in an active compost pile they take many months to compost. I have to keep throwing them back in when I pull out the finished compost. Some of the organic salad greens sold at Sam's come in these packages.


We also reuse our plastic grocery bags as trashcan liners, we do use canvas bags but they aren't always with us so some plastic bags are inevitable. The 3 R's in order are Reduce, Reuse, then Recycle. Our undersink trashcan is a Reuse as well, it is a plastic bucket that dishwasher detergent came in it fits under the plumbing and a plastic grocery bag is a perfect fit.

So I agree with you Hersheygal, it makes no sense to stop using plastic grocery bags and start buying trashcan liners. Also as a former PA resident, love your town we usually visit every summer for a day at Hershey Park while visiting family in the Harrisburg area.

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They do make bio degradable bags and they keep in the box/roll and don't begin to degrade till after they are taken out.

Also a bag made out of recycled material is better than a bag made from fresh material. They do make small trash liners with recycled bags and biodegradable bags.

I believe there is a link on the green sites finds thread if intrested.

You know....I have been doing more and more reading on this and most recently I think in part of my Cradle to Cradle(the way we make things) reading or else Living like Ed ....posed the question of biodegradable plastic bags for trash....in that there are components in any plastic that are not desirable to have breakdown/biodegrade....unknown tradeoff...the author stated they used recycled plastic bags as a best alternative. Sure does get complicated to evaluate as I for one am no scientist equipped to fully understand some of this....so perhaps you don't want them biodegrading in your home compost pile after all...what does biodegrade really mean? I think it means breaks down to return to soil, but when some things break down what they break down to may not be desirable to be in soil.

I have seen several places that bio degradable bags leave undesierable traces in the soil.

I stick to recycled.

And also biodegradable bags may need certain elements to actually biodegrade. Will they decompose burried in a landfill w/o air and sun?

that and you know my opnion about not waisting our bio resources just cuz they can be grown. Just cuz you can do something doesnt always mean you should.

I do not use small plastic bags for trash. I return them to Wal-Mart or recycle them.

I purchased Glad ForceFlex tall kitchen bags. They are marked with "100% Recycled Paperboard. RACHEL ~ What does that mean. Do they
bio-degrade?

amby my woording is off. But often for something to biodegrade they need air, sun, oxygen to do so.

here are some articles about it

I'm not saying they are bad. They certainly have their uses and not all biodegradable bags are made the same. But alot of biodegradable plastics require exposure to the elements to actually biodegrade efficently and I just don't see how, if burried deep in a landfill, they would get the required oxygen, water, sun to do this effectivly.

I have also read that some biodegradable bags leave a undesierable residue in the soil once they are gone.