Remember Paper Grocery Bags?

[Fret Buzz]

...that DIDN'T have the little handles?  What a nightmare.  Whoever decided to glue on those little paper handles made them soooo much better.

[Kirby]

the bags with handles are better than bags without handles, but you can still carry a lot more with the plastic bags.

[Square Wheels]

I never use the handles, I don't trust them.  Plus, I almost always bring my own bags.

[Fret Buzz]

Just now, Kirby said:

the bags with handles are better than bags without handles, but you can still carry a lot more with the plastic bags.

I don't think that is true.   A lot, however depends on the items being purchased and how they are packed.  I can hold two Trader Joe's paper bags per hand or about four or five per hand/arm of plastic.  But those plastic bags will dig into my arm pretty fast and furious!

[Fret Buzz]

1 minute ago, Square Wheels said:

I never use the handles, I don't trust them.  Plus, I almost always bring my own bags.

Yeah - I use the reusable when I am actually thinking ahead.  But I like the paper bags as our "recycling" bags for newspaper/paper and for cans & plastic, so if I forget the reusable, the paper bags do a good job later as recycling bags.. 

[Square Wheels]

We have a single, large barrel for all recycling, I love it.  Recycling every two weeks, trash every week.  We don't bother taking out just trash, we usually have very little.  Our recycling is always full.

[sheep_herder]

I personally find the handles to be a PITA, as they usually break with bad results.  We find many uses for the regular paper sacks.  Thank You!

[dinneR]

4 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

We have a single, large barrel for all recycling, I love it.  Recycling every two weeks, trash every week.  We don't bother taking out just trash, we usually have very little.  Our recycling is always full.

Single stream recycling doesn't really work all that well if your intention is to recycle the material.

 

[Fret Buzz]

11 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

We have a single, large barrel for all recycling, I love it.  Recycling every two weeks, trash every week.  We don't bother taking out just trash, we usually have very little.  Our recycling is always full.

You keep a large barrel in your kitchen?

Or you make lots of trips to the garage?

Or you have a reusable tote for between the kitchen and garage?

IOW, how does recycling material get from the place of use - kitchen, living room, whatever - to the large barrel?

[Fret Buzz]

8 minutes ago, dennis said:

Single stream recycling doesn't really work all that well if your intention is to recycle the material.

Recycling in general doesn't really seem to work   Well, not in a simple and easy to execute manner.

[Square Wheels]

We have a huge barrel with wheels in the garage.  We have a little barrel in the kitchen that we dump regularly.

[Fret Buzz]

2 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

We have a huge barrel with wheels in the garage.  We have a little barrel in the kitchen that we dump regularly.

So, you're "little barrel" = my TJ's paper bags.

[maddmaxx]

I actually had a young high school aged bagger recommend to me that I should use plastic bags instead of paper because paper bags required that a tree be cut down.

I wonder who taught her that?  I was going to explain that trees grow and plastic doesn't but I realized that it would be a waste of time.

Yes I use my own cloth bags most of the time.  I do however like to get some paper for things that need to be put in bags for recycling.

[jsharr]

1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

...that DIDN'T have the little handles?  What a nightmare.  Whoever decided to glue on those little paper handles made them soooo much better.

Are you clinically insane?

[Fret Buzz]

5 minutes ago, jsharr said:

Are you clinically insane?

Probably.

[groupw]

I used to be a grocery carry out in high school. It was all paper then and about 5 or 6 bag sizes. We could fit the proper bags to the purchase. I could sort like items together and adjust the weight of the bags to the perceived strength of the customer. We had far less bag waste than I see today. Sometimes the old ways are a bit better. 

[Indy]

1 hour ago, Square Wheels said:

We have a single, large barrel for all recycling, I love it.  Recycling every two weeks, trash every week.  We don't bother taking out just trash, we usually have very little.  Our recycling is always full.

You do realize that anymore most of your recycling barrel goes to the exact same place as your trash barrel.  They've closed down most of the recycling drop off centers around here because they can't get rid of the recyclable material anymore.

[Page Turner]

Are Plastic Bag Bans Garbage?

...I found this sort of interesting.

[Page Turner]

29 minutes ago, Indy said:

because they can't get rid of the recyclable material anymore.

...damn Chinese again. *grumble*

[Longjohn]

Where I take my recyclables they pay me cash for them. The forced recycling programs are feel good liberal programs that don’t work.

[dinneR]

2 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

Recycling in general doesn't really seem to work   Well, not in a simple and easy to execute manner.

It depends on how the program is run. Clean recycling material like aluminum and paper is still profitable. If it's not clean, it's worthless and you have to pay some company to take it and then they dump or burn it. 

Our local program is a pain, but it is profitable. They won't take a lot of stuff people think is recyclable.  A company can put the recycling symbol on anything even if it cannot be recycled. 

[dinneR]

51 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

Where I take my recyclables they pay me cash for them. The forced recycling programs are feel good liberal programs that don’t work.

What is a forced recycling program? 

[Longjohn]

We have lots of communities where you have to pay an extra fee and recycle all your recyclables in a separate tote that is picked up each week. It has recently been exposed that they are hauling all that crap to the landfill as well. I always suspected they did. The people living in those communities said I was wrong, a separate truck picks up the recyclables. I made them mad when I told them they follow the garbage trucks to the same landfill.

[dinneR]

Just now, Longjohn said:

We have lots of communities where you have to pay an extra fee and recycle all your recyclables in a separate tote that is picked up each week. It has recently been exposed that they are hauling all that crap to the landfill as well. I always suspected they did. The people living in those communities said I was wrong, a separate truck picks up the recyclables. I made them mad when I told them they follow the garbage trucks to the same landfill.

Isn't that the fault of the haulers and the gov't organization that isn't doing their due diligence? I don't see how it is political.

Our county currently diverts 34% of waste to recycling where it is then sold. They have never had a bale of material rejected.

[Longjohn]

2 minutes ago, dennis said:

Isn't that the fault of the haulers and the gov't organization that isn't doing their due diligence? I don't see how it is political.

Our county currently diverts 34% of waste to recycling where it is then sold. They have never had a bale of material rejected.

You think?

[Kzoo]

4 minutes ago, dennis said:

Isn't that the fault of the haulers and the gov't organization that isn't doing their due diligence? I don't see how it is political.

Our county currently diverts 34% of waste to recycling where it is then sold. They have never had a bale of material rejected.

Saw a piece a couple weeks ago that documented the worldwide recycling issue.  Up until recently China processed most of our recyclables.  They created cheap Chinese goods from our crap.  By government decree they have changed those industries and as a result they have gone from being a net importer of recyclables to a net exporter - mostly to India.  That has left us and now Europe with no market for our recyclables.  They are either stacking up or going to landfills now.  So we separate, sort, bundle haul and they still end up in the landfill.

 

[maddmaxx]

1 hour ago, Page Turner said:

Are Plastic Bag Bans Garbage?

...I found this sort of interesting.

Who'd have thunk it, that people would stampede after a meme without first studying the overall result.

 

[dinneR]

13 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

Saw a piece a couple weeks ago that documented the worldwide recycling issue.  Up until recently China processed most of our recyclables.  They created cheap Chinese goods from our crap.  By government decree they have changed those industries and as a result they have gone from being a net importer of recyclables to a net exporter - mostly to India.  That has left us and now Europe with no market for our recyclables.  They are either stacking up or going to landfills now.  So we separate, sort, bundle haul and they still end up in the landfill.

 

Exactly. That is why clean material is worth something and contaminated is not. The U.S. was shipping crap to China and eventually they got sick of it. 

 

32 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

You think?

I know. You realize you can look this stuff up. 

[MickinMD]

Costco sells insulated bags are about 2' long by 1.5' high and that vary from time-to-time from being about 8" to 12" wide and sell for $6.99 to $8.99.

I have two: one of the smaller ones which is tremendous at keeping stuff very hot or cold for a couple hours and a bigger one which usually holds all my grocery shopping.

When I'm shopping at more than one place, I often carry the smaller, empty one into stores with me and store stuff in the bigger bag when I get to my car.

The bigger one looks like the left pic below where a double zipper runs around the long side and both short sides. The smaller one on the right or 2nd pic has one long zipper down the middle of the top. Both have a side storage pocket:

[Page Turner]

3 hours ago, dennis said:

What is a forced recycling program? 

[Page Turner]

[maddmaxx]

Whew.  I was a bit afraid of where a sailor might go with a paper bag thread.