General Chat

Tina was that male or female old or young? The 'I don't look after the environment' one. I should have been lost for words there too.

Tina

I have said on a number of occasions that 'yes I have them but they are in the car' That was when they were only 10p each but now I have my smart £2 bags I never leave them in the car. I hope you also say 'can I pack for you'. Nearly all the check out assistants at my local say that to me. I do have one who I avoid who never offers to pack. I always say to her don't go too fast but what does she do..................

You can see by this thread that I don't get out much!

Vera

Many years ago bought an item at the local linen shop and instead of putting it in a plastic carrier bag they were using cotton bags. Okay it has their name on it but they are still a local shop so I have no problem with the advert on it. Washes a treat as well. I fold it up and put it in my handbag.

A lot better than the hessian type ones at the supermarkets.

When I had a car I just used to put the items back in the trolley, wheel it out to the car and then place them in the fold down crates I had in the boot.

No need to take plastic carrier bags at all.

Supermarket plastic bags are wrong but just the tip of the iceberg.

We started to remove all the extra plastic cardboard and such at the supermarket and left it in a trolley. The local gruppenfuhrers had a hissy fit and insisted that we take the extra unwanted packaging home with us ... this rubbish easily exceeds plastic bags.

French supermarkets stopped giving out any kind of free plastic bag more than five years ago. They are still in business. France also has an effective recycling scheme without the multicolored bin disaster.

Interestingly the local greengrocer (we have one in a town of 150 000 people!) is much cheaper than the supermarket. No plastic bags. We have 5 proper butchers within 5 miles and three of these give a much better deal than the supermarkets. All 5 have better meat.

However with all of the butchers and the greengrocer you run the risk of the yellow line parking monster. And that is the rub - parking fines are now the bedrock of local govt finance and they don't give a monkeys who goes bust. There is not a single street within a mile of the town centre that does not have dbl ylw lines.

The bin recycling mania is also based on money not any desire to improve the environment.

sic transit gloria mundi

We too have a local greengrocer in town, cheap as well. But they do use plastic bags.

Incidentally I do take a bag when I buy clothes as I don't fancy new clothes in with the rest of the shopping. That is usually because buying an item of clothing is often spontaneous. I suspect I could plan to have a clean bag with me. However I use the green carriers from the clothes to take clothes to charity shops.

I thought I was reasonably good about taking my own bags, recycling etc etc until I saw a friend of mine take the tab off a teabag & put it in the recycle bin. As she said - it all adds up :-)

My tea bags go into our own compost (Plus tags if there are any!)

I have the strong big bags & use them but do not like putting raw meat into them in case of leakages, so do put meat into a plastic one. These I reuse for 'doggie doings' (which go into bin provided up the road)

Well off to S/burys, if you see me I am the one with an assortment of bags advertising different supermarkets & a couple of cloth ones bearing the logo 'Do I look like a plastic bag person'

I always take my own bags or if doing a small shop I take my trolley...Once a lad at the checkout asked if I wanted any bags and I said no im going to juggle the things all the way home :-S :-S :-S The look on his face!!

Jules x

If I buy chicken I do often take a plastic bag in case it leaks.

Have you ever done an online order from Sainsburys? It all comes in plastic bags, some only containing 1 item. And I am sure that the delivery person would not be prepared to wait for them all to be emptied in order to take them back, and what would they do with them? They are often by this time torn or the handles tied together, so not really any use except for our own rubbish.

We use them for some rubbish items (food which cannot be 'composted' and will get a bit smelly long before bins emptied!!) we keep a couple in our bags for life we use weekly and a couple loose in the car. But every so often we do run out and then we will do another online shop just to top up.

When I was a child (a long time ago) the grocer, baker, milkman, fishmonger etc delivered. Nothing came in plastic bags. The grocer used cardboard boxes, which he took back. All the women I knew had shopping bags. And few people had cars. I can't imagine doing my shopping and carrying it home on a bus.

When doing the 'big shop' I use my own very large bags to pack it in, with the exception of any meat, for which I uses a separate plastic carrier bag, shop provided. When OH goes for a few 'bits' he brings home a plastic carrier. I re-uses these for, cleaning up the well wrapped up doggy doo. Also, I hang one in the greenhouse for any bits. OH also takes them to the allotment for bringing up the produce, but these again are re-used. Any un-wanted charity bags are used to line the kitchen bin.

Julia in Derbyshire

PS. I have also seen what Ann has described when in the supermarket.

coop bags are biodegradable - as I discovered, to my horror, when clearing a hoarders house.

It isn't so much landfill that bothers me with plastic shopping bags as far larger items end up there. The issue I have with bags is them being blown far and wide and endangering wildlife.

I've been using a trolley bag for some time so just drop my goods straight in it.

Yes there is that Island but if hundreds of people use the bags they can be a problem in landfill, even the biodegradable ones take a while to disappear.

18 months Ann, which has to be better than years or not at all.

Yes much better.

slightly off topic......our community compost bins were dismantled because kitchen waste was being put in them - in tied plastic bags!!!

Sometimes I think it is ignorance. We have food bins collected weekly and sent where the food is turned into compost. Our authority allowes a certain degradable bag to be used. (It is light green and has a seed logo on it). Other local authorities won'e allow any bags at all because they thought their collectors would not be able to recognise when the wrong bags were used.