[gruez]

>>the report says 90% of the new reusable bags are used a mere two or three times. So they are piling up in landfills and homes.

>but the idea that they’re going to be buying these new bags ever other trip to the store because they’re piling up in a room at home for years is hard for me to believe.

What's likely happening is that they go out to buy something, forgot their bag, and is forced to buy a reusable bag. If enough people are forgetful, the "90% of the new reusable bags are used a mere two or three times" seems very plausible to me.

[Wowfunhappy]

What happens to me, living in a walkable city without a car (something I'm proud of for environmental reasons):

• I'm walking to work / home / a social outing / etc, with no intention of going shopping.

• I pass by a store on the way.

• I now need a bag.

Could I always bring a bag with me when I go out? Yes, but I try to travel as light as possible because I'm walking.

[danielhep]

I'm also in a city without a car (and am proud of it), and also struggle with this. One thing that helped me a lot is to buy a few ultra lightweight packable bags. Ones that can be packed into a pocket in themselves. Then I put these in every backpack I normally carry with me. It helps that I rarely leave the apartment without a backpack.

[prmoustache]

Why do you need a bag to begin with if you carry a backpack? Is it always full?

[johnnyanmac]

mine mostly is. It's a tight pack for carrying my laptop and similar paraphernalia. It's not really means for storing more than a few small pieces of groceries

(note: this is rendered null anyway because I do need to drive everywhere in my suburb).

[alamortsubite]

My technique is simply to ask myself if I might need a bag while I'm out, and if so, take one with me. Works great!

[dfxm12]

• Bags aren't big or heavy

• What spur of the moment shopping are you talking about?

[crazygringo]

If you don't already carry a backpack or other bag, you don't have anywhere to put grocery bags. It's not like they fit in your jeans pocket.

And I do a lot (the majority?) of my grocery shopping spur of the moment. Basically when I'm on my way home and realize I have extra time and it's not so late that the grocery stores have closed. And my life is such that knowing whether I'll have time to shop that evening is entirely unpredictable.

[ta1243]

The reusable bags in the UK certainly do fit in your pocket (when correctly folded up)

[crazygringo]

In a pocket on your bulky winter jacket? Sure.

In your jeans pocket? Not unless you want to look... well let's just say that bulging pockets on your butt, or on the front of your pant, are not a good look... not to mention not being particularly comfortable.

[Wowfunhappy]

Can you please link me to something I can buy? I've never found something both small enough when folded to be pocketable and big enough when expanded to be useful.

[joh6nn]

Not recommending this specific one, just an example of the category: https://www.amazon.com/Reusable-Shopping-Eco-Friendly-Waterp...

Search term was "pocket shopping bag"

[ta1243]

The normal bags from a UK supermarket fit just fine in my back pocket, smaller than the wallet I used to carry around

[bane]

The problem is one more unique to being a walker in a city. You're out and about, maybe just walking to the park or something so you brought nothing with you, but the park you like is a 15 minute walk from your apartment.

Near the park there's a great bakery. You see they're having a nice sale on a box of a dozen croissants, and their croissants are the best in the city. So do you:

- Grab a couple boxes, and a reusable bag to carry them in?

- Walk 15 minutes home to get your bag, then 15 minutes back, then 15 minutes back home (45 minutes total) just so you don't pay $3 for a bag?

- Carry around a bag all the time even though you had no intention to buy anything when you left, and use it only a few times over the hundreds of time you leave your apartment?

[latexr]

I’m not the person you asked, but I’d do none of the above. I’d buy the boxes and carry them. They’re presumably perfectly ordinary parallelepipedical cake boxes, perfectly suited for carrying in your hands. There’s no need for a bag.

[Wowfunhappy]

This is certainly an option (as is not buying the pastries), but it gets pretty uncomfortable over a 15 or even 10 minute walk, because you have to keep the boxes level. You can't just hold them by your side.

It's even worse if you have to e.g. jump on a crowded subway.

[latexr]

And now you know for next time: “there’s a great bakery near the park that I like, better come prepared”. You now have two reasons to go there. Take a disposable plastic bag (hint: they are and always were reusable) folded in your pocket.

This not a hypothetical. I learned pretty fast to always bring a mostly empty backpack with me to the park. I pack a couple of beach towels, maybe bring a jacket, and an e-reader. Sometimes I may not lay down on the grass, or not read. Or I may meet with someone and have a towel at the ready for them. But I have multiple options and none of them is a burden.

Carrying an almost empty backpack for a recreational activity takes zero effort, and it can be used to carry groceries on the way back if I want. Each of the things I carry in it is the result of a previous time where I didn’t have it. People in this thread are acting as if this is an intractable problem. It’s not. Every time you’re faced with a problem of this nature think “what could I do to avoid this next time?” then do that.

[prmoustache]

really?

[dfxm12]

Carry around a bag all the time

As I was saying, this is not the hassle it seems like it is being made out to be. Setting that aside, a box seems like just as good a vessel to carry as a bag, so in this specific case, I really don't understand the issue. If this place has such good pastries and you know, you can plan ahead and pay full price.

If this really is somehow life changing savings on pastries I mean, yeah, taking some extra time walking won't do any harm.

[ruined]

usually when i'm walking in a city, i'll have a coat with pockets or a small bag with me, containing things like a water bottle, a snack, an extra layer, a book, maybe laptop. it's not hard to fold up a small cloth tote and carry that too.

[gruez]

>• What spur of the moment shopping are you talking about?

"Honey, can you get eggs on your way home? We just ran out"

[dfxm12]

If not being able to carry a carton of eggs in your hands a serious concern of yours, I think there are other issues at play...

[Wowfunhappy]

Bags are big enough that they don't fit in my pants or jacket pocket. I don't understand your second question.

[oftenwrong]

Some companies offer compact reusable bags that can be stored in a coat pocket. For example:

https://seatosummit.com/products/ultra-sil-day-pack - I've had a few different versions of this bag for years. There are also cheaper/bigger/different versions of the same sort of thing you can find online for "packable daypack".

https://nanobag.com/products/nanobag - I have heard good things about these, but I prefer a backpack because it allows me to be hands-free, or to use my hands to hold more items.

However, I would start by carrying a lightweight "single-use" plastic bag, and simply re-use it. Plastic bags are not as strong as these premium bags, but they hold up well enough to be useful in most scenarios.

[Wowfunhappy]

Thank you, these look amazing, I'm going to get one! They don't entirely solve my problem because they don't get large enough (for the smaller sizes, the larger sizes are too large when folded) but they'll be useful to have.

[HPsquared]

Reusable bags are big and heavy to carry around everywhere. Ironically the old disposable bags are much better for this reuse scenario.

[orthoxerox]

There are reusable net bags that are very compact.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

They aren't heavy, but they are big/bulky. You can't just stuff them in a pocket. Ironically, the "bad" plastic bags (thicker and bigger than standard US grocery bags, but still a single layer of soft plastic film) could be folded into a pocket, while the new "reusable" ones can't, making it harder to actually reuse them.

> What spur of the moment shopping are you talking about?

Groceries. It's common around here to shop often but in small quantities, because the grocery store is likely somewhere on the footpath from work to home, from work to public transit, or from public transit to home.

Which means you're either carrying the bulky bag with you all day, or using single-use bags. Or, of course, you could buy a car to follow the "stop whining just throw a few in your trunk" suggestions always posted /s

[dfxm12]

They aren't heavy, but they are big/bulky. You can't just stuff them in a pocket. Ironically, the "bad" plastic bags (thicker and bigger than standard US grocery bags, but still a single layer of soft plastic film) could be folded into a pocket, while the new "reusable" ones can't, making it harder to actually reuse them.

This is incorrect. There are reusable bags that fold into pocket sized. Ikea has them, among other brands. Now that you know, I'm sure you'll reevaluate your outlook on them, right?

Additionally, if you're coming back from work, you probably already have a bag to carry stuff you need for work that you can use to carry a "spur of the moment" amount of groceries or other bags. However, this sounds more like a regular occurrence you are neglecting to prepare for rather than a spur of the moment thing.

[cycomanic]

I'm confused, in all the places that I'm aware of (3 countries) supermarkets sell paper bags for cases like these.

Moreover if it is such an issue for you why don't you buy one of these soft thin fabric bags that essentially roll up into their own little bag and are small enough to always carry around?

Like these https://www.ulsterweavers.com/collections/roll-up-bags

[fooster]

Certainly in Canada where one time use plastic bags are banned the supermarkets do not provide paper bags. They will sell you reusable bags which are larger (and therefore more resource intensive to produce) which are often not reused. I have a huge collection of them at home.

[VancouverMan]

I've got some colleagues who live in apartment buildings in an area of Canada that's like that.

About half a year ago, they were telling me about how they're seeing more and more of those thicker bags in their buildings' large shared garbage dumpsters, rather than the much thinner plastic bags that used to be used for bundling garbage back when they were still readily available.

I wouldn't be surprised if it has gotten worse since then, as people have gradually used up the thin plastic bags they'd previously collected and used for bundling garbage.

[Wowfunhappy]

The problem with the roll up bags is they're still too bulky to fit in my pants or jacket pocket.

[graemep]

I wonder what the environmental impact of paper bags is? The paper has to come from somewhere.

[bmicraft]

Paper is literally renewable and also easily recycled

[didntcheck]

Sure, the disposal side of the story is probably better, but as I understand they require more energy to produce than plastic bags (at least the old thin ones), and anecdotally they get reused way less, partly due to frequent tears, but also ironically because people instinctively shove them straight in the recycling when they get home

[graemep]

The renewable bit is not straightforward because it means greater land use to produce. Similar problem to biofuels.

[raydev]

> If enough people are forgetful, the "90% of the new reusable bags are used a mere two or three times" seems very plausible to me.

Sure, and this definitely happened in my region of Canada where plastic bags were banned already, but eventually people will stop forgetting once their closet fills with too many reusable bags.

[dan_mctree]

We need supermarkets to provide places where people can donate or sell their excess reusable shopping so other people can pick them up and use. That should put a big dent in the necessity for people to make use of new bags if they didn't bring their own reusable bags

[matthewdgreen]

Our city banned single-use plastic bags. The result is you can have paper bags for 5 cents each, or you can buy re-usable plastic bags for $1-$2.50 each (usually tilted towards the higher end.) Nobody is forcing you to buy re-usable plastic, and it's expensive enough to dissuade people from buying too many.

BTW, the biggest outcome is that I use fewer bags in general, and just don't take a bag when I don't need one.

[Wowfunhappy]

For some reason, a lot of retailers around me in New York seem to only sell the "reusable" bags, with no option for paper. I don't know why, it's very annoying.

My other problem is I can't reuse paper bags as trash bags (because even a tiny amount of liquid will leak through). So now I have to buy plastic trash bags, which sucks because I do in fact care about the environment.

[matthewdgreen]

As far as I can tell, that's a retailer decision and not something mandated by the state or city.

But the real problem with single-use plastic bags is that they blow out of dumpsters and landfills. They're incredibly bad for the environment, in ways that re-usable bags and even larger trash bags are not.

[dotnet00]

The paper bags aren't that reliable though. They're fine if you're just carrying the groceries to/from your car, but then you're also likely to already have a bunch of bags/baskets laying in the car. They also suck for cold stuff (eg milk), as the condensation quickly renders them useless.

[alamortsubite]

Taxing the sale of reusable bags to fund a PSA campaign might be in order.