OK-- Let's DO IT! Reusable grocery bags

[Jennie@ifish]

Pheh! I bought two reusable grocery bags at Freddies, and I am so bad!
They sit in the back of my car and I always forget. By then, I'm too tired to go get them, while standing in line when I remember.

Next week is "free bags" at Freddies. Get some! They are only free with a minimum purchase, but regardless, use SOMETHING else besides their throw away plastic or paper bags.

I don't care where you shop, but just try not to take any of their trash home.

Let's see if we can actually USE reusable bags. I'm making a committment!

Let's try... just for a couple weeks, at least!

Report back if you actually remember to use them. Report back if you forget!

Post here how many bags you DIDN'T use for the next two weeks, starting tomorrow, OK? Just to see if we can make an impact.

Jen

[Pete]

Paper, plastic or reusable?

I believe starting next Sunday (not sure if it's tomorrow or the following) Fred's will give 3 bags at no charge if you buy $75 of groceries. Otherwise, it's 2 for a buck. The bags stand up on their own, the handles don't rip out and they hold more than the brown plastic tree decorations.

I'm up for the challenge.

[HammondSeaRanger]

what no IFISH canvas grocery bags?

[Pete]

According to the EPA, in 2001 between 500 Billion and one Trillion bags are used each year, world-wide. That's between 500,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000. That is a lot of waste!

[MsOutdrs]

Jennie...a suggestion...cause I've done what you do...forget them and too impatient, after standing in line, to go back and get them. I either put my grocery list in them or even my purse when they are in the car.

[JustCallMeDave]

Most major grocery stores have a place at the front of their store where you can recycle the bags. I've got a bunch under the sink that'll be going there soon.

[pearl]

Great idea !

I'm working on a project currently on a reusable grocery bag that has the shopper in mind. Bag will be made of hemp and will have a heavy rubber bottom ( like a marsh bag for duck hunting )that will extend up the sides 4 inches and would be able to secure liquids from meat, produce, broken item etc from leaking out. It is designed to have a cell phone pocket, area for coupons and dividers that will be able to be snapped in and taken out so that you can separate your grocery items. Dividers will have a pocket a gel pack could slip into to keep your grocery's chilled while on the way home. It will have both carry handles and a messenger strap that will be adjustable.
Bag is made of 100% recyclable and or sustainable products.
Cost at retail not yet identified and were hoping to lock down our commitments with the manufacture very soon. Currently two options. #1 - made over seas or #2 made in the USA. I'm leaning toward option #2 but it will add 35 - 40% cost of retail. My gut tells me consumers will pay a bit more for quality thats made on our soil.
This will be a quality item that will last for years.
We are also working with a number of national grocery chains that will have a display rack so you can purchase and grocers that will give you a rebate at the check stand for using your own bag and cutting down there cost for "paper or plastic".
We also hope to add a cents per unit sold donation to an environmental cause. You may also be able to take your at check stand rebate and donate it back to a selected cause.

I have been in sales the last 25 years and this is my first foray into the manufacturing world so I'm learning as I go.
Hope we can pull it off.

More details to come.

[Reel_Big_Fish]

Originally Posted by JustCallMeDave

Most major grocery stores have a place at the front of their store where you can recycle the bags. I've got a bunch under the sink that'll be going there soon.

is what we do. Or my wife takes them to her school where they have a recycle bin for them.

[Pete]

I don't know if the move is entirely altruistic. Major cities across the country (Phoenix, San Francisco and others) are on the verge of banning disposable plastic grocery bags. Free reusables might be a way to avoid regulation.

[PapaHog]

I am in North Carolina on vacation and I have never been asked paper or plastic...

It is either plastic or you take your groceries home in your pocket.

[Cornbread]

I use mine for my archery target. A burlap bag stuffed really tight full of plastic grocery bags works great for a target I can take just about anywhere.

[Joe Schwab]

We save all of our plastic. They make great dog do picker uppers. Lunch bags (not after you have used them for dog do of course), mushroom bags, trash bags in the boat and both cars. I usually put a couple in my coat pocket when going out in the woods. They are just darn handy!

[freespool]

Here's a very promising idea, it's 100% biodegradable plastic.



http://www.biobagusa.com/

[Fast Water]

Originally Posted by Pete

Major cities across the country (Phoenix, San Francisco and others) are on the verge of banning disposable plastic grocery bags.

Yes please.

[bait dunker]

paper bags burn, plastic bags have a few good uses like mushroom picking and starting the burn pile. recycling takes too much effort and i dont think does very much good. i has seen programs and read articles were they say upwards of 75% of recycled goods end up in landfills anyway. and exactly how much room do 1 billion plastic bags take? one or two, 5, 10 semi trailer loads. if i burn my 50 bags a year i wont lose any sleep. i still think we should go back to paper bags and support the local timber economy. good for those of you who do recycle, it just doesnt work for me

[MsOutdrs]

Great idea !

Depending on the cost, I really like the sounds of that. Hope you can get it on the market

[freespool]

Originally Posted by bait dunker

paper bags burn, plastic bags have a few good uses like mushroom picking and starting the burn pile. recycling takes too much effort and i dont think does very much good. i has seen programs and read articles were they say upwards of 75% of recycled goods end up in landfills anyway. and exactly how much room do 1 billion plastic bags take? one or two, 5, 10 semi trailer loads. if i burn my 50 bags a year i wont lose any sleep. i still think we should go back to paper bags and support the local timber economy. good for those of you who do recycle, it just doesnt work for me

I'd like to see these articles that state 75% of our recycled waste ends up in the landfill.
Here's what the leading recycling city in America is doing.



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1, 2007

Contact:
Amy Stork, Office of Sustainable Development 503-823-0229
Babe O’Sullivan, Office of Sustainable Development 503-823-9582

Portland Recycles!
City of Portland releases draft plan to guide recycling and waste reduction through 2015

Portland, Ore. – Commissioner Dan Saltzman and the City of Portland’s Office of Sustainable Development (OSD) today released a draft plan that proposes to overhaul the City’s curbside recycling and garbage services and raise the bar for waste recovery from businesses.

The draft Portland Recycles! Plan responds to a spring 2006 resolution by City Council that OSD propose a way for Portland to meet ambitious new goals including zero growth in the total waste produced by citizens and businesses, and recycling 75 percent of all waste. The Plan will guide the City’s major solid waste and recycling initiatives through 2015.

“For 20 years Portland has been a national recycling leader,” said Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees the Office of Sustainable Development. “But today we have reached a plateau. The amount of garbage we produce is increasing, and the recycling rate is staying the same.”

“This plan contains bold recommendations that address the City’s concerns linked to waste: global warming, dwindling natural resources, toxics in our air and water, pollution from collection trucks, and the health and safety of garbage workers,” he continued.

The draft plan is available for public comment through June 15, 2007. After review and revision, a final plan will be presented to City Council in summer 2007. The Office of Sustainable Development will then develop detailed implementation plans for the recommendations adopted.

Major waste streams addressed
Portlanders recycle or compost 63 percent of their waste; the remainder is discarded as trash. The draft Portland Recycles! Plan focuses on the largest categories of items that are still going into the garbage. Most of that waste could be kept out of the landfill:
o 29 percent could be composted — most of that is food scraps.
o 20 percent is building materials that could be recycled.
o 26 percent consists of things like paper and glass— materials that are recycled every day in Portland.

The Office of Sustainable Development involved many stakeholders, including Portland residents, advocacy groups, businesses and garbage haulers, in developing the draft plan.

General recommendations
The plan recommends a stronger focus on waste prevention. By encouraging wise choices that help avoid waste in the first place, the City hopes to help residents and businesses reduce the amount of energy and natural resources used in the manufacture and transportation of new products. In addition, the plan recommends achieving the new 75 percent recycling goal by expanding curbside recycling options for residents, increasing education and technical assistance, and with stricter enforcement of recycling requirements, particularly for businesses.


Key residential recommendations
Portland residents have long asked to be able to include more items in curbside collection. The draft Plan recommends that Portland mirror surrounding jurisdictions including Beaverton and ClackamasCounty, where most recycling is combined in a single large wheeled cart, with glass in a small container on the side. The carts can be rolled to the curb and lifted and tipped automatically by recycling trucks, reducing the risk of injury to both residents and garbage workers.

Along with the wheeled recycling carts, the plan proposes to add plastic tubs and nursery pots to curbside recycling, and to supply a large yard debris cart to each household. If the plan is adopted, these initial changes would take place by 2009.

After 2009, the plan proposes inclusion of food scraps in the yard debris bin, with collection on a weekly basis. At this time, standard garbage service would switch to every-other-week collection.

Under the plan, the cost of residential service would increase about 10 percent for most Portland residents in 2008. The increased rate covers the cost of the new recycling and yard debris carts. This increase could be offset completely if the household switches to a smaller garbage can or reduces the frequency of pick up. Adding weekly food scrap collection in 2009 or later would be cost-neutral, as standard garbage service would move to every-other-week. Customers wishing to continue weekly garbage pick up would incur additional cost.

Food scraps are collected from residences in other west coast cities including San Francisco, Seattle and surrounding suburbs.

The Office of Sustainable Development estimates that the sum of these changes would produce an increase of 33 percent in tons of recycling collected from residents.

Key commercial recommendations
Because businesses generate three-quarters of all waste in Portland, the plan proposes to raise the bar for businesses. Currently, businesses are required to recycle 50 percent of their waste. On average, they are exceeding this goal: the commercial recycling rate is around 63 percent overall.

The plan recommends requiring businesses to capture 75 percent of all their waste. The City would offer more help for businesses, and would also increase enforcement and monitoring.

The recommendations focus on new requirements for the most significant waste products. The largest food businesses would be required to have their food scraps collected separately for composting. All businesses in Portland would have to recycle all their paper. Construction jobs valued at over $50,000 would need to recycle 75 percent of construction and demolition debris.

City Council will also consider reforming the commercial garbage system to better meet the new recycling requirements. The plan seeks comment on three commercial system options ranging from continuing the current open market system (businesses choose a garbage hauler and negotiate rates) to a franchise system (haulers would be assigned to geographic areas and the City would set rates – similar to the residential system today.)

Additional recommendations
The draft Plan recommends that City of Portland bureaus not only follow the new requirements for businesses, but adopt a higher recycling goal of 85 percent. The Plan also calls for reducing pollution from collection trucks in Portland’s neighborhoods by requiring use of 20 percent biodiesel (B20) fuel in all trucks and by developing new emissions controls for the trucks.

How to comment on the draft Portland Recycles! Plan
The Office of Sustainable Development encourages residents, businesses and concerned groups to comment on the proposed changes outlined in the Plan. The public comment period lasts from May 1 to June 15, 2007. Opportunities to comment include several public meetings and online comment forms. The plan, meeting details and supporting documents can be found online at http://www.portlandonline.com/osd/index.cfm?c=43052&

The City of Portland Office of Sustainable Development (OSD) brings together community partners to promote a healthy and prosperous future for Portland by encouraging improvements and innovation in energy use and technologies, recycling, food policy, sustainable purchasing, environmental education and high-performance green building practices.

[Jennie@ifish]

Bait Dunker, you crack me up.

[JustCallMeDave]

Originally Posted by bait dunker

i has seen programs and read articles were they say upwards of 75% of recycled goods end up in landfills anyway.

And I has seen articles that say upwards of 97.42% of statistics quoted on the fly are fabricated.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by bait dunker

... and exactly how much room do 1 billion plastic bags take? one or two, 5, 10 semi trailer loads.

It's not 1 billion ... it's 500 billion bags a year, at least, in 2001. Probably more now. If 1 billion would fit in 10 semi trucks, we're still talking about 5,000 to 10,000 semi trucks a year of bags, at a minimum, assuming you are correct and you could fit a billion bags in 10 trucks. Only a fool would not think that's a problem we need to do something to correct.

[johndeeregreen]

I'll stick to paper. Loggers need jobs to.

[IDWITHELD]

I have about 10 of the reusable bags. Very convenient.
If reusing bags means less dependency on foreign oil....count me in.

[Thumper]

Sorry folks. Bait Dunker is being too generous with his estimate.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0329/p01s03-ussc.html

San Francisco currently crinkles its way through 181 million plastic bags every year. Only 1 percent of those bags get a second life in products like deck furniture and railroad ties, even after a decade of trying to boost recycling. Nationally, the picture is similar: Less than 1 percent of 100 billion plastic bags tossed each year get recycled.

[freespool]

Originally Posted by Thumper

Sorry folks. Bait Dunker is being too generous with his estimate.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0329/p01s03-ussc.html

San Francisco currently crinkles its way through 181 million plastic bags every year. Only 1 percent of those bags get a second life in products like deck furniture and railroad ties, even after a decade of trying to boost recycling. Nationally, the picture is similar: Less than 1 percent of 100 billion plastic bags tossed each year get recycled.

Maybe that's why SF is about to ban pastic shopping bags?


"Under the plan, the cost of residential service would increase about 10 percent for most Portland residents in 2008. The increased rate covers the cost of the new recycling and yard debris carts. This increase could be offset completely if the household switches to a smaller garbage can or reduces the frequency of pick up. Adding weekly food scrap collection in 2009 or later would be cost-neutral, as standard garbage service would move to every-other-week. Customers wishing to continue weekly garbage pick up would incur additional cost."


So Jack, you will still be able to stick with your "What Me Worry?" recycling attitude, but it's going to cost you if you do it in Portland.

[Thumper]

Originally Posted by freespool

So Jack, you will still be able to stick with your "What Me Worry?" recycling attitude, but it's going to cost you if you do it in Portland.

Whoah up there Barney. I am a fan of recycling

[bait dunker]

i guess i dont understand peoples push to recycle at all costs. i have a mulch pile that sees table scraps, i also take my cans and glass to work and put them in my works recycling. i can most of my own food so i dont have tin cans to throw away. i dont have garbage service at my house. i have a burn barrel, ive been using it for 2 1/2 years and its only about 1/3 full of ash. i personally think its far better to burn my garbage than to let it be burried in a landfill, not to mention all of the money i save. call me a tight, but i think its the better way to go. once i consider the money i save, the pollutants the garbage truck doesnt put out driving to my house, i live on a dead end road, and id never fil the can each week anyway, it doesnt make sense. sure, pollutants come out of my burn barrel, but perhaps thats better than letting them sit in the ground mixing with other things creating "super pollutants" leaking directly into groundwater. i applaud people who go all out on recycling, im just saying i dont think it works for everyone. it definately wouldnt pay for me.

[Cornbread]

This is directed at the cities who are considering passing a law banning plastic sacks.

It is a noble thought but seriously if you took all the trash from the US for the next 1,000 years it would fill a 44 square mile land fill. Yep that's it:

Read for yourself:
http://www.cei.org/gencon/005,04527.cfm

From the article:

If you took all the United States’ trash for the next 1,000 years, including e-waste, it would fit into a 120-foot deep, 44 square mile landfill. That’s less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the land in the U.S.

Furthermore, landfill capacity is not diminishing but remains constant, according to the EPA. While some landfills have been closing due to stringent federal regulations, they are being replaced with new ones 25 times larger.

So if you think about it how much of that 44 square miles over the next 1,000 years would be populated by plastic bags? A square mile? More? I doubt anyone can say for sure but it won't be an issue for at least a 1,000 years.

Feeling like you are affecting change is good for your health even if you know it isn't doing anything. I'm not joking.

There was a study when I was in college of mice that were played a noise that really disturbed them or it may have been a noise and an electric shock. I don't remember the specifics of the stimuli but it wasn't pleasant for them to say the least. Half the mice were given a button that when pressed stopped the stimuli before it had run it's full X number of seconds that it was scheduled to play for. Then a week into the study the button stopped doing anything and the stimuli played for as long as it was scheduled to. The mice that never had the button lived less than half as long as the mice who had a button. The mice who had a button would keep pressing it right up until they were too old and feeble to do so even though the button stopped doing anything months or even years prior. They lived longer because they felt they had control over the situation and it made them feel better about it so they had less stress.

People are the same way. Passing a law to ban plastic bags makes law makers and people feel better. It probably isn't actually doing much of anything.

[Fast Water]

Originally Posted by Cornbread

They lived longer because they felt they had control over the situation and it made them feel better about it so they had less stress.

Conjecture.

Or did they interview the mice?

[Fish Killer]

Originally Posted by johndeeregreen

I'll stick to paper. Loggers need jobs to.

Thanks - I have read some of your past posts and I like the way you think.




Employee of a pulp and paper company.....

[Geemo]

http://fredmeyer.inserts2online.com/...drpStoreID=220

Here's a link to the ad at Fred's. Go to page 5 for the info

[PGJPJ]

Geezz, no big deal. My wife bought a bunch of those reusable bags. She also got a couple that are insolated (I think from Trader Joe’s). They work great, doesn’t have to be like a big political or environmental statement or anything. No one evens gives it a second thought.

We just got tired of those stupid plastic bags piling up. I used to use them as lunch bags for work, but I couldn’t keep up with all of them that were coming in.

Try a few, it actually makes things easer.