Bye Bye Plastic Shopping Bags - Good or Bad?

It's only when something is gone that you realize how much you used it!! Case in point... plastic grocery bags. Our city passed a bylaw this past year that banned plastic shopping bags. The provincial and federal governments are not far behind... soon it will be the law of the land.

Yay!!! A win for the environment! No more plastic bags caught on trees and blowing into creeks and rivers. Right?

Yes... absolutely true! But then we have to think of what they have been replaced with too. I did a post a few years back that looked at the environmental impact of various shopping bag options (plastic, paper, reusable, canvas). It was a bit of an eye-opener... particularly the environmental cost of paper bags. And let's not even mention canvas or cotton bags!

But... in our city, paper bags now cost $0.25 and reusable bags now cost $2.Ouch!

The idea is to nudge consumers into remembering their reusable grocery bags before walking into a store. If you know that you're going to be shelling out cold, hard cash for some bags... you might just remember to bring your bags... or head back to your car to get them once you realize you've forgotten them. I do have to say... it's been working for me. I'm getting to be quite good at remembering the bags... cause I hate to pay for my forgetfulness!

Why I Miss Them...

But... to be honest... I miss the plastic grocery bags! We used them for so many different things...

• pop/beer cans - the bags were a perfect fit for 20 cans!
• stuff to go to thrift stores
• small waste basket liners
• picking up garbage when out for a walk
• picking up cans and bottles at the party spots in the woods 
• bundling recyclable filmy plastics to take to the recycling depot
  
• ... and the list goes on

We didn't realize how much we re-used plastic bags. And we aren't the only ones. According to our city... of the 9.5 million check-out bags landfilled in 2020... 3.5 million of them were empty when disposed. That means 37% of plastic grocery bags are absolutely single use... used once and then tossed in the garbage. Even though they can be recycled...

But... that's the thing. Plastic bags can't be put in the recycle bin. You have to make the effort to gather them, stockpile them and then take them to the recycle depot. And not a lot of people are into that. Sigh... so... we are where we are with them.

And now... well... we are kind of stuck and having to get creative with what does come into the house. Because... we refuse to buy plastic bags to serve the same functions!

Creative Replacements

We've started saving apple bags. They aren't ideal for some things because they have air holes in them. But they can be used to line narrow waste baskets where we only toss "dry" trash. And I can use them to pick up garbage on my walks. They are narrow and deep though... so don't work for other uses... like picking up cans at the party spots.

One of our favourites at this point is the big toilet paper (or paper towel) package plastic overwraps. If you cut them open carefully, you can get a massive bag-like thing! They are great for taking stuff to the thrift store. I've got a number of them in the back of my car at the moment, packed with a bunch of thrift store stuff.

We've even started thinking we can use the smaller 6-pack toilet paper wrappers for waste baskets. If we open them carefully and don't tear them apart... they just might be the perfect size. And yes... Our massive toilet paper packs have exterior overwrap and then within that, each 6-pack of toilet paper is wrapped as well. Annoying.

And... for pop and beer cans... we have a big garbage bin outside where we dump them once they fill up our inside container. It was a convenience thing to bag them up inside and then just dump the small bag into the larger bag in the garbage bin. We can give up a bit of convenience I think...

I did find the grocery bags were a perfect size for bagging up cans and bottles at the party spots in the woods. And their loop handles allowed me to have multiple cans of bags hanging off of various fingers. That's not going to work with any of the above options. So I may just have to bring bigger bags and adapt to the circumstances... Although... I do have a stash of old plastic grocery bags that I can keep using and reusing until they fall apart.

Reusable Bags... but for how long?

As for our reusable bags... we had quite a stash in the car but they are slowly dwindling in number. We are finding that some of them are not very sturdy. They get tears in them or the seams start going or the handles break. At which point, they turn into thrift store donation bags for us. We are trying to eke as much life and use out of them as possible. I tend to think canvas bags would be a better option except... their eco-footprint is HUGE... way worse than the reusable grocery bags.

I suppose the question is... how long do these reusable grocery bags actually last? They would need to be used 6 to 52 times in order to have less of an eco-footprint than a single-use plastic bag. Sooo... let's do an experiment!

As I write this... it is Friday January 6 and I am going grocery shopping this morning. I am going to buy a selection of brand new reusable grocery bags from different stores. I will label them somehow (perhaps Gorilla tape or a marker) and will test them over the next year. How long do they last? Some people say they should last 3-4 years... but it depends on how often you use them, how you use them and how you take care of them. I'm not going to get prissy with my reusable bags. I'm going to use them the way I always do... i.e. use them hard!

I go grocery shopping pretty much once a week... so if they last a year (or 52 times)... then we are golden. Stay tuned for updates!