Now reusable plastic bags may be banned (Calif)

Show of hands, people that are shocked by this? Anyone? Nope, me either. Saw this coming from a mile away. Make people pay (or give for free if they are on assistance) for a bag that is 10x thicker plastic and of course there will be more plastic waste. People that want to reuse bags do so, forcing a thicker plastic bag on customers was never going to be a viable solution.

I am surprised that California uses reusable plastic bags.  Can you get them in a grocery store?  

In my state if you do not bring your own bags to the grocery store and are purchasing them they are paper bags. I am not sure if merchandise type stores can use the heavier plastics when you purchase one from them or not?  It seems like anytime/anywhere I have to get a bag from the establishment it is paper.

^^^^. yes, possession of 5 bags is very low!!

It sounds like these "Reusable" bags are just normal grocery bags, but thicker---is that right? If that's the case, I can se why people aren't going out of their way to reuse them.

I love the reusable bags sold by a regional store in our area, Wegmans. They are truly reusable bags. They keep their shape nicely and are a good size--tall enough for soda bottles or a box of cereal, and sturdy enough to hold a bunch of canned or jarred goods, heavy produce, etc. You can open them up like a paper bag and they stay open while you're loading/unloading them. They have a plastic coating so you can wash them out easily. And they last a decade, easily.

Apparently I'm not the only person who loves them because I see people selling them on Ebay, Poshmark, etc., and for more than just the 99 cents each that Wegmans charges, of course.

shop.wegmans.com/shop/categories/1154

I can't find a way to link just the bag I mean, but it's the 99 cent ones that we use. I have a bunch of the very first one shown, plus a few older designs.

I'm rabid about my reusable bags. In our state, it's illegal to ban plastic bags. I'll bag my own groceries, go back to the car for my bags, or carry items to my car in my hands to avoid using a disposable bag. Our non-profit is going to hand out re-usable bags to the people walking into Publix without bags. I've seen some of the most beautiful beaches in the world fouled with trash and it's only getting worse. It makes me crazy.

I stopped using grocery pick-up because the plastic bags were taking over my house. They used way too many... It took about 25 trips to the recycle bin at the store (inconveniently located as far from the doors as possible) with a giant load to get rid of them.

I almost always remember to bring my own bags now because I don't want a garage full of the stupid things again.

You and me both! Love some of the designs so have to have them.

We don't use those thicker plastic reusable bags. I like the old, thinner ones for lining trash cans in our house- bathrooms, craft room, kids' rooms, etc., but the thicker ones don't fit right in our cans for some reason. They're hard to tie off as well. So they go right into the recycling bin when we get them.

It seems to be hit or miss, which bags the stores use. Food Lion still does the thin bags, but Walmart mostly does the thicker ones. We mostly seem to get paper bags from Target.

When I order on-line for in-store pickup at Walgreens or CVS, my items are always put in the thicker re-usable plastic bag. I'm charged 25 cents. But they attach a huge sticker on the side of the bag that is impossible to remove without destroying the bag. I'm not going to use that bag in public with that sticker attached (it shows my name and other info) so I cut off the sticker and 'recycle' the bag. Such a waste of 25 cents and a waste for the environment.

I just push my cart out to my car with all my stuff loose in it. Then I bag/box it at the car. Like the Aldi or Costco model. lol. I keep a couple Costco boxes on the back seat for that purpose. When they start to get ragged I recycle them and get a couple more from Costco.

I like the idea of handing out bags to people entering the store without them.  I do pretty well remembering to bring my bags into the store with me and have only had a few times where I got almost to the door and had to turn around to go get them.  

I was irritated with myself for having to buy more when I first moved up here because my myriad of bags were packed and in a pod.  I do use a few at home for various purposes too.  I love the giant IKEA bags for carrying my laundry rather than an unwieldy laundry bin.  It is so easy to just toss my clean laundry into the open bag and carry it on my shoulder, leaving my hands free to assist getting up the couple of stairs in my laundry room.  I am struggling with a very sore knee and need to assist myself getting up or down even a single step.  And that is even with my knee brace on.

I have even been using an IKEA bag to transfer things to bring into the house as I continue unpacking boxes.  It is so much easier than dragging a box into the house, unpacking it, and carrying the flattened box back to the garage again.

I have one specific bag that I use to carry the little clear trash bags of kitty litter out to the trash can.  It is a bit bigger, has a very sturdy handle, and is plastic so that I can wash it easily.  I use the Costco small trash can liners to scoop into, but there is no way I trust them enough to walk out through my house to the trash can with.  It is just safer to use the big plastic coated bag each time.  I did have to write on the bottom of that one because I have two more just like it and don’t want to accidentally put groceries in the kitty litter carrying bag, even though no litter has ever touched the insides of that bag, it is just the thought of it.😝

Ooh, yeah, Trader Joes has good bags, too!

We have a ton of reusable bags because we like to have at least 10 regular ones and 3-4 insulated ones in the car for the weekly shopping trip, *but*, I do also have a tendency to keep swiping them to use for things around the house.  If you look in a closet around here, you're likely to see something stashed in a reusable shopping bag.