I'm not a plastic bag.

[legendaryone]

Thought this may be of interest

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6448687.stm

[OurEcoHouse]

The average Briton uses 167 plastic bags every year - 10 billion in total.

It's unbelievable. They really should charge for every plastic bag like £0.10 and you would see how the usage could drop.

[ohareward]

One of our supermarkets is asking people with three items or less to carry their purchases rather than using a plastic bag. It's a start I suppose. For all people know the supermarkets might have shares in the plastic bag companies.

Robin

[Nikki]

I agree with OurEcoHouse.

Look at Aldi stores in UK. They're cheap and sort of cheerful supermarket. They charge for their bags. You hardly ever see people buying them. People either stuff everything into their cars or bring used bags from home.

At least many supermarkets are offering their own branded re-usable bags. But most people are too lazy/complacent to bother. Charge them for the plastics and sudddenly you'll see a change.

[Silver Ether]

Why dont you make your own re-useable ones??? I do ... and I try to either use good heavyish canvas or recycle fabric .. eg curtains and line them with
calico type stuff ... depends what I can get my grubby little mitts on

[hamster]

Ooh, those are lovely! V impressed!

I saw someone the other day with an 'I'm not a plastic bag' bag, but she was using it as a handbag and putting her shopping in a carrier bag! Even worse, this was in M&S, where they have signs up all over the place saying 'Do you need a bag?' and a huge display of reusable bags behind the tills...

[Cornelian]

People in Australia seem to be very aware of the plastic bag issue - Tasmania is working towards a complete ban, and certainly in the supermakets in the 2 states I have lived in over the past 15 years, far more people use the canvas tote bag than plastic - supermarkets sell them for under $1. If you buy under 3 items in a supermarket here then odds are you will simply be handed them straight back to you - not even offered a bag.

[colhut]

it doesn't happen much these days, but when I was a kid it was normal that while all the shopping was being dealt with at the checkout us kids would scurry off to find boxes to pack them in, not a plastic bag in sight. Now I realise that cardboard packaging needs to be reduced too, but you only have to see the rubbish containers in the supermarkets to know that there are enough boxes there to offset a few thousand bags and if the cardboard is then collected and recycled there is no loss there either.

[possum]

Although generally I agree we should produce less rubbish.
I did go through a stage of always taking an old fashioned shopping basket with me, but then I found that I needed to buy bin bags instead of re-using the carriers, which obviously didn't help the environment one bit.
I think the only solution is biodegradable ones. I had one a few months back which I hadn't realised was biodegradable, I left it outside for a month with soemthing inside it, when I finally remembered to pick it up it looked like a pile of confetti and that was only a month of degrading

[ina]

but then I found that I needed to buy bin bags instead of re-using the carriers

I don't use bin bags - they are not necessary. If you have really messy stuff to get rid of, use some of the other "rubbish" (bags, wrappers) to wrap it up in. And no, my bin doesn't get overly dirty, and nothing stinks.

[red]

yeh - I thought I was doing my bit for the environment by using carrier bags in my bin - then one day i realised it was not necessary, AND we were still bringing in more bags than using. so starting to stockpile them. we now have a very small bin (used to be a flour barrel or something) which means it gets emptied often, and so does not get a chance to get stinky. Its small enough to put in the sink - so when necessary, I can wash it. the only problem we have is with something a bit nasty - like fish heads! - Even when I wrapped these in paper - by the time the brown bin was emptied.. we had maggots...eew. and the bin men would not take it away....so with something particularly nasty, i might wrap in a bread bag first - which i realise is far from perfect - but at least we are doing much better than before.

Our council advertise these cornstarch bin liners - but I do have to wonder just now much land is being dedicated to growing corn to be bin bags.. its bothers me...

[possum]

but then I found that I needed to buy bin bags instead of re-using the carriers

I don't use bin bags - they are not necessary. If you have really messy stuff to get rid of, use some of the other "rubbish" (bags, wrappers) to wrap it up in. And no, my bin doesn't get overly dirty, and nothing stinks.

The problem is that here our rubbish is not collected and we have no outside bin, so I would have to chuck an assortment of small rubbish packages in the boot of the car to take to the transfer station.

[Mare Owner]

You all are way ahead of us. Every store here now automatically gives you plastic bags. Grocery stores do still have paper, and you can get those if you ask for them, but the other stores are mostly all plastic.

[flower]

Years ago, Safeways used only paper sacks made from recycled stuff.
granted, they didn't have handles so weren't as convenient as carrier bags.

Supermarkets thrive because they kid people into believing they are more convenient. Their marketing strategy depends upon people going in for one thing and coming out with a dozen.
Therefore, thinking they're only getting one item, lot's of shoppers don't have their 'bag fo life' with them and resent the cost of another one.

I think that if they only had the option of a paper sack or of buying a reusable, everyone would be happy.

[Clara]

but then I found that I needed to buy bin bags instead of re-using the carriers

I don't use bin bags - they are not necessary. If you have really messy stuff to get rid of, use some of the other "rubbish" (bags, wrappers) to wrap it up in. And no, my bin doesn't get overly dirty, and nothing stinks.

The problem is that here our rubbish is not collected and we have no outside bin, so I would have to chuck an assortment of small rubbish packages in the boot of the car to take to the transfer station.

We "struggled" with the same problem because we have to carry our rubbish and recycling 1km to the nearest village. But because we have chickens, dogs and a compost heap, there is never anything food like in the bin. This means we don´t need a bin liner and we can take the rubbish out in the bin, strapped to our backs on the metal frame of a old rucksack that we use to bring gas cylinders and the like in.

We only realised this was the solution when we found that we´d been so good about taking out cloth bags that there wasn´t a single plastic bag in the house.

So could your solution be something similar? Perhaps having more than one bin and then taking them in your car to the tip, to make the journey efficient. We used to live where we had car access but couldn´t have a compost heap (rented house), and having a bin liner split in the boot in the heat of a Spanish summer created quite a stink, wish we´d thought about taking the whole bin then.

Clara x.