Now everyone has reusable shopping bags they bring to the stores.

The bags are much more rugged than single use plastic bags or paper, and reuse is better than recycling.

However, I think shopping bags are probably not the intended market for this stuff, and the need is more to replace the plastic wrapping that covers food. There have been efforts here and in the UK to reduce the amount of packaging in the first place but there will continue to be places where we still need it for a while

It's actually really simple to influence human behavior with pricing!

Nutshell, it they may not be a net plus for the environment when so many poor quality bags which are more energy/resource intensive to make end up being single-use anyway.

I've seen several studies that dispute the efficacy of reusable plastic items (bags, cups, etc). The energy costs of producing the "sturdy" alternative are often high enough to offset the gain in reuse.

IIRC, one study showed that reusing the single-use grocery bag one time (as a trash bin liner) was enough to put it back ahead of the typical $1 reusable bags available at the check-out counter at most grocers.

I was shocked recently when I visited a shop in another european country and they had regular non-reusable bags, it seemed so primitive!

> Many are barely 'reusable', the are crap and don't get used again an get thrown out

there are thinner plastic ones, but even the lightest "reusable" bags we have last for months if not years. unless you're buying pineapples and throwing stars every time you shop they should last you a while.

It's all about vibes with you people.

Can you cite where this is happening?

I agree things were easier when they delivered it in bags though.

Is this some sort of deranged lobbying scheme?

I don't think so. This is largely dependant on each grocery delivery service, but of you look at it the worst cases are actually just continuing business as usual,which is hardly a regression. In the meantime, some services managed to completely eliminate the use of plastic bags.

As an example, for the past year or so I had a groceries delivery service use their old plastic bags, but they also implemented a charge-back service where they pay you back when/if you return them in the following delivery. This is clearly an improvement. In the meantime I had competing supermarket chains completely switch away from single-use bags to alternatives such as reusable plastic crates and even reusable cardboard crates. Behemoths such as Amazon Fresh completely switched to a mix of paper bags, for example.

Bonus: the KLT system easily offers enough assistance to automated/mechanized handling that the box delivery task doesn't require humans.

Could probably easily have a portal crane style 4-wheel robot to drive the new box from the van to your door, drop it, and bring back an empty box you put out for it.

Well, something about curbs, but the stair dolly (big wheel made of 3 smaller wheels) style drive can probably cope with most.

Originally the KLT boxes were made to elide re-packing and manual box handling in the many-small-supplier-companies car industry of Germany. They differ from the more widely seen euro boxes by having molded features to allow a robot gripper to "plug" into any of the 6 sides of the cuboid and get a solid grasp of the box suitable for (re-)stacking them as long as their nominal load rating is adhered to. Also at least one, if space a short and a long side though, have a slot to hold a DIN A-series piece of (tick/heavy) paper describing the box contents, such that the box won't be contaminated with sticky tape residue.

When they're eventually broken from old age or abuse, they can be recycled cleanly because they are normed to be a pretty specific plastic and to (for interchange at least) be one of that colors (grey and a dark blue).

I have seen a local service, picnic, using a small urban-only electric truck (if not even a tricycle) who's back is just a 120 cm (plus tolerances plus door thing) wide shelf to be used with 40x60 cm euro boxes. If they were KLTs you could just put the box as-is in your pantry instead of doing the "dump onto kitchen table" tactic, I guess.

The Aldi I usually go to has staff that are so ridiculously efficient that there are nearly zero empty boxes on the shelves, and the rolling "box cage" is nearly always tucked away somewhere unseen unless they're actively using it.

This isn't a complaint. It's a nice place to shop, and the stock is always very orderly compared to some other locations.

But GFS? They've got boxes at the checkout. I think the expectation is that the customer is supposed to box their own stuff, but they always do it for me if there isn't a line.

Their hardgoods tend to be tremendously high-quality for the price, too: Stuff is frequently ~half what I'd expect to pay elsewhere for something similar. Their buyers must be stellar.

It meant that when all other supermarkets stopped offering free plastic bags, most of the shopping populace was already used to keeping reusable bags in their cars or purses, so it was a pretty easy transition.

Your comment is a textbook argument of perfect being the enemy of good.

Sure, some bags are thrown out. Sure, people use more than one. Sure, people can buy them if they feel they need them.

That's perfectly fine, as that's completely besides the point.

What you're failing to mention is that thanks to this push to adopt reusable bags the use of single-use plastic bags plummeted. You no longer see over a dozen single-use bags being thrown out at each and every single shopping trip. These bags aren't recyclable and disintegrate very easily, making it extremely hard to pull them out of the environment once they get there.

You're also somehow leaving out is the fact that some major supermarkets chains are making available reusable shopping bags made of natural fiber. It's not a given that you're replacing large volumes of single-use plastic with small volumes of reusable plastic, as you're also seeing small volumes of natural fabric being used.

You're also leaving out the fact that this push is taking single-use plastic out of the market but nothing forces customers to adopt the store's own offerings. Anyone is able to buy whatever type of shopping bag suits their fancy.

So no, you're not seeing plastic being replaced with plastic. You're seeing drastic reductions in plastic use by eliminating perverse incentives to consume single-use plastic containers, and the adoption of substitute goods that have a far preferable environmental footprint.

So, when you say

> So no, you're not seeing plastic being replaced with plastic.

I think immediately of NJ's attempt to wrangle this problem.

> While the state’s ban — which, unlike those of other states, also prohibited single-use paper bags — led to a more than 60 percent decline in total bag volumes, it also had an unintended consequence: a threefold increase in plastic consumption for grocery bags.

> How this happened is no mystery.

> The massive increase in plastic consumption was driven by the popularity of heavy-duty polypropylene bags, which use about fifteen times more plastic than polyethylene plastic bags.

> “Most of these alternative bags are made with non-woven polypropylene, which is not widely recycled in the United States and does not typically contain any post-consumer recycled materials,” the study explains. “This shift in material also resulted in a notable environmental impact, with the increased consumption of polypropylene bags contributing to a 500% increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to non-woven polypropylene bag production in 2015.”

https://fee.org/articles/new-jerseys-plastic-bag-ban-backfir...

I'm supportive of the goal, but I really do think that making laws that are simple solutions to complex problems really can backfire and be a net negative, so we need to think several steps ahead.

Again: textbook example of perfect being the enemy of good.

I completely disagree with your take. I've seen whole supermarket chains switch from single-use plastic bags to multi-use cardboard crates in their delivery services, and also to paper bags/containers. That's pretty much the definition of the ideal outcome.

So you're seeing some plastic being thrown out. That's besides the point. The point is how many volume of plastic is being dumped onto the environment after supermarkets switched away from cheap single-use plastic bags.

I'm not seeing anything myself, and I cited no anecdotes. I cited a study that found plastic use went up after the ban.

I don't see why caring about plastic bags is mutual exclusive from caring about automobile free cities. I'm 40 and have never owned a car. I'm a big NotJustBikes and StrongTowns proponent. We can for sure debate car dependence and what policies we should advocate for. But this was an article about biodegradable plastics.

Montreal is shutting down a ton of streets every summer to make them walkable, and we've built out an extensive bike infrastructure. All great things! We could make public transportation free.

I don't understand why you insist that we need to solve the "real" problems of pollution before we dare think about other smaller, easier to solve problems. It's not like we're playing a video game where society only has a finite amount of elbow grease to apply to this set of issues. We can reduce plastic bag pollution while also working toward reducing the pollution from automobiles, tire wear, and whatever else you on your own high horse have deigned to be "real problems".

These are not conflicting goals.

"We" are not working on solving those other actual sources of pollution. We're just making people's lives worse. People think they've "done their part" by not using bags, when they haven't done shit.

Put a tax on them that funds an environmental initiative, whether that be decarbonisation, trash clean-up or better landfill management.

Cents, not dollars, right?

For the grocery store, we have a set of, I guess, 10 or so cloth bags we use. We've used the core set every week for over 12 years. Had a tailor stitch up a hole in one of them once, wash them every few months.

We have a large, cloth Target logo'd bag I stuff in the bottom. It's about 1.5x the size of the normal ones, if I put it on top they inevitably drag it out first and fill it with the milk, juice, bowling balls (both of them), cinder blocks and whatever else is super heavy that we happened to buy that day. "But it fits!" "Yea, and now it weight 50lb!" Couldn't stuff it with cotton balls, stuffed animals, and the Cool Whip.

So, yea, bottom of the bag it goes.

I know there are concerns with cloth, and we wrap notably meats in the light plastic bags to help contain contamination. It's not been a real problem.

We've just started (past few months) using reusable mesh bags for the produce, that's working out ok so far.

Frequently the store staff have to double-bag everything with paper because the bags tear so easily. But when double-bagged I can get 5 or 10 uses out of them, which suggests that the bag just needs to be thicker to be highly reusable.

Do you live in California? Nevada? I bet it is somewhere hot and dry. Paper bags are not fun in the pacific northwest, or the north, or deep south ... basically anywhere with moisture in the air. Either you put them down in a puddle by accident, or you get snow on them and it melts in your car on the way home. Either way, the bottom will fall out the moment you pick them up.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/20/...

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/04/30/plastic-paper-c...

By estimated impact: cotton > paper > plastic, but more constructively:

> Ultimately, the single use of any bag is the worst possible choice. The key to reducing your environmental impact is to use whatever bags you have around the house as many times and in as many ways as possible.

By volume I throw away more diapers in a month than an entire lifetime of plastic bags. Fighting plastic bags is what the rich companies making actual pollution want you to focus on so you aren't fighting real pollution.

Why can't we fight both? Reducing both plastic bag pollution and "real" pollution seems better than just one or the other.

Banning plastic bags in the US does absolutely nothing for the plastic bags clogging waterways in Asia.

Sometimes people think plastic recycling in the US is shipped to Asia where it ends up in waterways but that's not a thing either. It might get buried in a landfill there rather than recycled, but compressed pallets of plastic recycling aren't getting dumped into rivers. That's not a thing. The bags aren't flying away in the wind or something either. All the plastic clogging rivers -- that's all local consumer littering.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Convention

[1] https://www.invw.org/2022/04/18/rich-countries-are-illegally...

That leaves 35 million tons, and with only 5% being recycled, there's plenty of plastic left to go into 'rivers, oceans, everywhere'.

[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-us-recycled-ju...

I permanently keep two or three in there.

Bottomline, it depends, but for most commons cases it seems worth it to reuse reusable plastic bags.

but you are correct about cloth bags, those are not worth it at all

PS: the best reusable shopping bag I have is a traditional Taiwanese shopping bag a friend brought from there. Light, beautiful, rugged, holds a lot of weight, seems indestructible. A pity they don't sell these here, I live in fear of losing it :D

California kinda screwed up by not mandating paper bags, or carving out an exception for them to promote their use.

[0]https://publicinterestnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01... - page 14

In New Jersey the problem was grocery delivery companies. Like, yes, if I have a constant stream of any packaging I’m going to dispose of it.

In California, stores giving away free bags seems to have compounded the problem. Banning single-use plastic bags and adding a bag tax seems like the way to go.

That's what California did, and it failed. Nobody is "giving away free bags"...

The previous plastic bags may have been reused (ie for small garbage bags). Are consumers now just purchasing equivalent plastic bags for that purpose?

I think there are so many unanswered questions and the benefits can vary by region.

Plastic Bags were banned here in Germany (Maybe EU?) so now you can get either Paper Bags or Plastic Bags made from recycled plastic water bottles. To be quite honest: The paper bags suck because they are fragile and the recycled bags are expensive.

Most people won’t shop enough in their life to pay back that organic cotton bag - reusing twice a week, it will take you 200 years before you break even.

1: https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-... - see section 6.3 for reuse numbers

I feel like in the 80's when there was a big "paper kills trees" moral panic the plastic companies took advantage of that to market plastic, and paper companies started recycling their products and developing fast-growing pulpwood species to plantation farm sustainably. And now we could absolutely go back to paper with fewer ill effects. It's probably better for the planet because even if your paper bags end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch something will decompose them into their organic constituents very rapidly and they won't agglomerate into rocks on beaches somewhere.

> If you put PLA in your home composter it'll still be exactly as it was in 5 years time.

More interested in learning to make it myself. Daughter and I have been extracting starch from potatoes, and we can reliably ferment to lactic acid. Distillation's trickier, and everything else after that's just bugshit crazy. Have to ferment M. hexanoica, it needs to be fed very specific nutrients to produce capryilic acid, extraction of that will be even more insane, and there seems to be no good source for tin in modern life. I've found a dozen tin scrapping videos on Youtube where you watch them and think to yourself "did they just screw around with soluble lead salts without even mentioning it?".

Also, I've had spontaneous combustion in our compost before. Maybe your compost game's just weak. Be sure to spread grass clippings until they're no longer deeper than about 3".

Not using trees will only incentivize people to re-allocate land that was used for the cultivation of trees to the cultivation of something else that is higher demand, and thus profitable.

The only way that not using paper will save trees is if we stopped all forms of cultivation/farming.

You want something that is just biodegradeable enough that it doesn't become a forever problem, but not biodegradeable enough that it mixes with food or becomes useless as a food container.

The worst offender is compostable bags: They can hold trash for about 1 day before they become the trash.

I buy mine from Costco and they easily last 2-3 days (the amount of time it usually takes for the pail inside my house to fill up). I take care not to dump wet items in, though not exhaustively so, e.g. coffee grounds are OK, sauce and liquids go down the drain.

Seems like it caught on in road deicer? I remember seeing ice melt sold with it up in ontario: https://modernfarmer.com/2022/01/beet-juice-deicer/

Right, because a business will almost always take the cheapest option possible unless there is direct customer pushback. It turns out consumers are really bad about thinking about long term (think decades) consequences that don’t immediately provide negative feedback.

Which is why we have government, to protect society from risks that may happen over a longer period of time or fall out of their direct control. Think: the EPA.

In India and other countries where sugarcane is grown, people use bagasse (a byproduct of crushing sugarcane for making sugar) for various purposes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagasse