Yeah, that is what happened to me as well. Now I have to buy the bags anyway.

I do hunt out extremely cheap thin bags that probably use less plastic per bag than the grocery store ones as they don't need to be as durable for most of the cans. But I also use heavy real garbage bags for the kitchen trash whereas before I'd use a grocery bag and empty it more often. So I can't really tell if I'm using more total plastic or not.

That was the intent. More expenses for you, more profits to corporate.

Corporations decided to give away the single-use plastic bags for nothing when this was allowed. If they wanted to increase their profits like this, they could have just stopped giving them away for free.

I'd say give using none at all try if it works within your location. We haven't bought any trash bags in close to 4 years.

We split our garbage into compost, recycling, paper, glass, and others.

So how do you leave the "others" for garbage collection if you're not using bags?

Goes into a big outside bin that get emptied from the trash company.

Ah, lucky you then. Where I live, everything non-recyclable won't get picked up if it's not put out in garbage bags cinched tight.

They’ll stop picking up the trash here if it’s not bagged in the bin.

When they raise it and turn it upside down to empty it, the wind can easily cause any loose and light stuff to blow around and not end up in the truck.

One bin probably is a small thing, but I can definitely imagine if the entire block were doing it it would start to accumulate fairly quickly.

Do you have kids?

Free work needs to be subsidized. How much time does it cost you to sort what they dump&burn together anyway?

How much do you suppose you need to be paid for picking up the spoon and putting it in your mouth? Taking out the trash should be basic self maintenance

None? It takes me not even a second to decide what bin to put it into.

Compost goes to a compost facility that generates methane from it and then sells the excess as fertilizer. Plastics get recycled. Reusable glass bottles get cleaned and reused, other molten down and reused. Other gets burned, filtered, and generates electricity.

I have some colleagues who live in apartment buildings with large shared garbage dumpsters.

They were recently saying that they've started to see more and more of the other residents using the much thicker bags now sold at checkouts for bundling their garbage, rather than the thinner plastic bags they used to use instead.

We've long bought the "green" bags for trash, kitty litter, etc anyway. In theory biodegradable. We also bought some small mesh bags for fruit / vegetables, so we don't even have to use the plastic store provided ones. So I hear you that there is still a need for something for these other uses, but alternative options exist beyond the classic plastic bag.

I’ve almost completely stopped my usage of the produce bags because I realized I was just putting things in them out of habit. There’s nothing wrong with putting three broccoli crowns or a cucumber directly into your shopping cart, and this applies for most things I buy. Loose green beans or brussel sprouts are about the only thing I bag anymore.