Comments on: Plastic bag ban: Coming soon to your city?

By: nitin

nitin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:46:48 +0000

Problem is with OUR HABITS or with plastic bags? Do we have better alternative? Isn’t using paper bags etc equally hazardous during production, depletion of trees etc? Plastic bags are just fraction of all the plastics we use and throw. Ban those fancy multi-layered pouches that just CAN NOT be recycled. Unable to change our littering habits, aren’t we quietly passing the buck?

By: nitin

nitin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:44:33 +0000

Problem is with OUR HABITS or with plastic bags? Do we have better alternative? Isn’t using paper bags etc equally hazardous during production, depletion of trees etc? Unable to change our littering habits, aren’t we quietly passing the buck?

By: The Recycler’s Guide to Plastic

The Recycler’s Guide to Plastic — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:27:40 +0000

[...] plastic bag bans are starting to pop up around the world, it is becoming quite obvious that people are becoming more [...]

By: Carlo

Carlo — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:45:34 +0000

“she didn’t think that was allowed” – ha. Shocking!

I don’t know what the hold up is. Just make it mandatory. Then everyone’s in the same boat, bam, done. At the German chain Aldi you have no choice, there are no free plastic bags. People use boxes they can scrounge from around the store to cart their goodies away. Recycling at its finest!

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:58:43 +0000

I’ve been bringing my own bags to grocery stores for something like 15 years. Finally, it’s starting to be viewed less skeptically. I remember only about 2 years ago, a cashier in Georgia (USA) telling me she didn’t think that was allowed. (Fearing a lost opportunity to advertise, since I wouldn’t be carrying store-branded plastic bags on my way home).
Charging is one way to gradually phase in a change: In response to Chris’s question, the province of Ontario (Canada) passed a law that retailers must charge a minimum of 5 cents per plastic bag. Cashiers in Toronto (the largest city in Ontario) routinely now ask “will you be needing to buy any bags?” before ringing up a total. The newspapers report government statistics that Canadians are apparently too cheap to fork over a whole nickel (5 cents) and so the change of habit has been rapidly taking over. Yay! Or so it is going in the affluent city. On the other hand, when I travelled to or through smaller towns, I found many retailers (the smaller independents I try to support) are still not complying – that is, they are still stuffing your purchases in plastic before you can protest ” But I brought a bag!” and not charging a thing for the plastic either. Perhaps they are afraid either of inconveniencing the seasonal/tourist trade, or maybe of alienating their off-season regulars (who are often, though not always, conservative and resistant to any change of routine especially if it is tagged as big-city-liberal). I hope that will change with time – perhaps down teh road they’ll see their own advertising opportunity and sell reusable bags with the names of their stores, so people can be proud of shopping the independents and will be reminded to return there. I agree with Niamh – why not set the example so our kids won’t remember the overcrowding of our cupboards, our trees and our waterways with plastic bags?

By: Lawrence Lund

Lawrence Lund — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:55:51 +0000

Kudo’s to you for joining the fight against plastic disposables. We’ve developed a truly sustainable cutlery from wood that is stronger than plastic, compostable (not just biodegradeable) fuctional and can be used a couple times before discarding. It also does not require the use of GMO’s, millions of gallons of fresh water and thousands of acres of fertile food producing farm land to produce. Please check out the we site and let us know what you think. (please note this is not the cheap chinese product but is made with a patented laminate technology unlike any other)

Lawry Lund
Aspenware

By: Niamh

Niamh — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:45:35 +0000

Ending the use of plastic bags completly would be fantastic!

As you said Julie, they’ve been banned here in Ireland for a while now and people just adapted so quickly to not using them. You can buy reusable bags in the supermarket, or bring your a backpack/box to carry stuff. The cute thing is watching young kids who don’t remember that you could get plastic for everything and knowing that they will never get into the habit now. It’s such a small amount of effort to remember you own bags , a lot easier than saving polar bears but just as useful !

By: Carlo

Carlo — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:22:32 +0000

I think what’s way more important than cutting down/out plastic bags is to change our “disposable” mindsets. Everything is disposable these days – it’s convenient and easy. But in the end we will pay a massive price for this “convenience”.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:48:40 +0000

The only reason I’ve ever needed plastic bags was if I had run out of garbage bags at home.

Aside from that the main thing plastic bags are handy for is preventing water damage or protecting something you need preserved…which you can use zip-locking bags for. I always use those when hitting the road.

Maybe a solution would be to charge for grocery bags? Outlawing them seems a little extreme, but charging to discourage their use is a good option in my opinion. But you can buy plastic bags off the shelf too….

By: Eva

Eva — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:06:13 +0000

Ha, thanks Julie! Glad to know there are solutions/alternatives in the works.