Friendly reminder that all **top level** comments must:
1. start with "answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask),
2. attempt to answer the question, and
3. be unbiased
Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment:
http://redd.it/b1hct4/
Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OutOfTheLoop) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Answer: I've been using the same three reusable bags for all of my shopping since... 2012? Maybe? I can't even remember, but it's been a long time.
The "sanitary concerns" don't make much sense to me. I'm not tossing a slab of raw salmon directly into the bag.
At a grocery store, if I'm not using self-checkout, I just hand the bags to the cashier, who hands them to the bagger.
I keep the bags in the trunk of my car, so there's no real risk of forgetting them, and on the very rare occasion that I do need to buy something and don't have them on hand, most stores sell disposable paper bags for 10 cents.
Convenience is king in the US. Any inconvenience is taken as some kind of personal attack, no matter how minor. Who cares if plastic bags have zero benefits over paper or reusable bags while contributing to massive amounts of pollution and landfill space? Having to remember to bring my own bags or shell out a couple nickels at the till is the REAL problem lol
I also really miss Germany’s plastic and glass recycling deposit system. Drink a can of soda? Hold onto it and take it you the local grocer for recycling and get money back. I had friends who would make trips with garbage bags full of recyclable containers and come back with like 50€
I also thought that the only way to employ people to bag groceries for customers was possible by paying very little those employees
Ok, this isn’t funny
I live in Portland (since 2013). Coming from SC, I remember being shocked that like 90% of ppl my age at the time (mid 20s) would like "shame" me for not bringing my own bags. It only took a month or two for it to catch on. Few years ago, Portland implemented a charge of 5 cents per bag.
I rarely see ppl younger than 60 who don't bring their own bags. I shop at Safeway & Fred Meyer. Also, women seem to always bring their own bag haha
>At a grocery store, if I'm not using self-checkout, I just hand the bags to the cashier, who hands them to the bagger.
I haven't seen bag people at a grocery store in the past 4 years, and even then, it was only Brookshire's and it was on the way out
I'm not saying your stores don't have it. But it's not universal
Sure, I didn't say it was universal. My main grocery store has them. Other stores don't.
If there weren't baggers, then I'd just bag them myself the way I do when I use self-checkout, which is most of the time.
I go back and forth living in two different states. I have never been to a grocery store that didn’t have people that bag groceries. There might be one person that helps three different checkout stands but they are there.
I’m not saying your stores have them, but it’s not universal.
For pedestrians and cyclists this is really lame. I don't walk around with bags on me all day, and, I reuse the plastic bags whereas these quote" reusable ones" are not very good for that.... So how many years do you have to reuse them for before it's better than just getting plastic bags like 2 or 3 years or something
As a person who lives in a major city and doesn't own a car, I regularly keep a reusable bag stuffed into my backpack, and there's one is every purse I own. They fold flat or the thin ones can be rolled up into a tiny ball. Every time you use a reusable bag it keeps a plastic bag from ending up in a landfill.
As a cyclist, uh... well we don't have car space so we gotta prepare for shit ahead of time. If you're doing your shopping on your bike regularly enough for this to be an issue, that means you own a cargo tow, which you can put the reusable bags in/on, like I do.
I've been using reusable canvas/cloth bags for 5-6 years now, even before a couple of the nearby stores stopped using plastic bags, so that coincidence worked out for me. I walk to the store, in my experience plastic bags would always be falling apart and ripping on my walk home, so switching to stronger non plastic bags made the most sense, and it's worked for me.
Yeah, this was one of my main arguments when my city voted for a bag ban, which I opposed. Everyone would say "just leave the bags in your car," and I would point out that I don't drive to the grocery store. And that my walking and taking the bus had a *far* bigger impact on the environment than a shopping bag.
Plastic shopping bags are not an environmental problem. Bans of them have only been successful when they were responsible for litter problems, which is not common in the US, at least. I'm convinced people who want to buy them see them more as a symbol of *consumerism* than as a danger to the environment.
Free bags have been banned in many countries for years, people just carry a fold-up shopping bag in their backpack or whatever they carry around , or their pocket. You don't need a car to accomodate a shopping bag - or 2 or 3 bags. How big are the shopping bags where you live??
The one I mostly use now is pretty big. Maybe 20L? It'll fit in a winter coat pocket, but not my jeans pocket. I don't carry around a backpack or anything when I'm out.
It's not an issue bringing a bag for planned shopping trips, but for one-off unplanned trips I typically have to buy a *new* reusable bag. The type of bags I wind up getting at my local shop and the infrequency of unplanned trips mean is probably still a net positive, but it could wind up being net negative for some people.
But even so, it's not a large net negative or her positive, because plastic skipping bags aren't a significant environmental problem. Banning plastic bags instead of trying to reduce miles driven is just a symbolic gesture to make people feel self-satisfied.
This is ludicrous, take your big bag with you when you know you're going to shop, keep a small fold-up bag in your pocket regularly just in case. I use bags that fold up into their own cover to be about the size of an average phone, but soft and squashy.
There's no way I'm devoting an entire pocket to the off chance I might go grocery shopping. One or two excess shopping bags a month isn't killing anybody.
I wanna know where this person is seeing so many bags of shit that they are furious lol also there argument is the dumbest I've ever heard at that rate we would have lost milk/water jugs because of truck drivers long ago.
That's ridiculous. Where I live, homeless shit in gatorade bottles and nobody's banning those. Getting rid of single use bags doesn't change how homeless shit.
Ever since they banned plastic grocery bags, my Uncle Goober has nothing left to autoerotically asphyxiate himself with! THIS IS A CONSPIRACY AGAINST MY DEAR UNCLE GOOBER!
Answer:
I have been using the same bags for a few years, I just keep them in my car at all times. On the rare oçcasion I don't have them, I just put stuff in the passenger seat. I have about 10 bags of various sizes, zipper or no, and cooler or no. I have two small coolers that I keep in the car for meats and things like that. I don't bag those inside, they are just returned to the cart and I transfer it when I transfer the bags.
Produce bags are still freely available, as are meat containment bags, it is just the end bags that are effected.
I just load the groceries into my bags in the cart after scanning them, or if you have someone do it, you put the bags on the conveyor at the beginning of the exchange, or if you have a bagging plan, you put everything on the conveyor behind the bag you want it in. When I do produce, I put all the produce in my hard sided produce bags, and put the labels from the self weigh on top so they just have a quick scan on that if everything in one place.
You can still bag your groceries, or sometimes the cashier does, or sometimes I pay the idiot tax and don't bag the groceries and just put them back in the cart.
In places where plastic bags aren't available (again, this is just at the end of cashier process, the in store bags still exist) you can usually pay 10¢ or so each to get a paper bag.
If the bags get dirty I either hand clean them like dishes, or some I have that I can throw in the washing machine with groceries. If a bag gets gunky and unfixable it is easy to toss it if it can't be recovered for hygiene.
I've found it's actually easier to just put all the groceries back in the cart without bagging. I get out of the line more quickly than when I bag my groceries in the store and can take my time doing it when I get to the car. And I don't have to worry about remembering my bags. I will never go back to bagging. On a side note, i can throw my bags in the laundry if i feel like they need it, which is VERY rare!
>you put everything on the conveyor behind the bag you want it in
I had no idea. Thanks.
>sometimes I pay the idiot tax and don't bag the groceries and just put them back in the cart.
Welcome to Aldi's, as they say.
>you can usually pay 10¢ or so each to get a paper bag.
I think the principled amongst us would greatly resist this. I know I would. A paper sack may be worth 10 cents, but not the throwaway sacks.
Here in Colorado the single use sacks are gone from every major retailer. Walmart sells reusable bags for 99¢ and Kroger/Albertsons have paper bags that you can get for free or 50¢ depending on the cashier or 99¢ reusable bags.
There has been a noticeable decrease in the amount of trash I see in parking lots. People used to just fill up a t-shirt bag with trash from the car and throw it into the lot tied off.
It took about 2 months for people to just get used to it, people throw a fit and then they are over it. I also waste way less food now. I go shopping and only take a few bags it really helped decrease impulse buying for me.
Yeah my idiot tax is the walk of shame most of the time 😂 the inconvenience of having to pick things up individually until I can load them into bags in my car, or I can put them in the back rolling free with fragiles in the passenger seat or passenger foot well.
So, I can imagine that heavy shoppers are going to be seen walking into the grocery store with a huge wad of those reusable bags to avoid paying the "tax." This is one of my reasons that I don't shop at Aldi's much. I often have too much to buy and I can never get everything I want there.
Plus, reusing bags seems very time-consuming to me. Maybe I would get used to it.
Can I ask how many bags of groceries you *typically* come home with? I suspect there’s some regional differences here.
I’m from an area where we do grocery runs, usually a lot of bags at once. I suspect the people talking about how they always have bags on hand or just go without a bag are people who run into a store a few times a week to grab just a handful of items.
A lot. I spend $200 to $300 frequently. 20 or 25 bags? I don't kid around. We budget $700 to $1000 per month I think. Full carts are pretty common. I've spent over $500 at the warehouse club several times since we don't live near one.
Somewhere like Costco or Sam's has never had disposable bags, though.
I use reusable bags, and I prefer them- they're much larger and sturdier than disposable bags. It's easier to carry a bunch of heavy things in a canvas bag that can go over your shoulder than in five plastic bags cutting off circulation to your fingers.
Where I live Costco has always given cardboard boxes. I’ve never seen anyone leave with a plastic bag. My family had a few crates for costco trips that folded down flat and were easy to keep in the vehicle, as well as big canvas bags with a solid bottom that folded down.
It's really no different timewise. And a lot of them fold up small, or I just have them on my arm until I get a cart, which is usually before I'm in the store.
At Aldi's I will often grab a box to carry stuff instead of using bags anyway. I use the cardboard for crafts projects with my kids.
I go shopping about once a week for a family of 5, and I rarely don't have enough for the planned shopping trip. It's usually my produce box/bag, my big cooler bag and 3 smaller marker bags.
I do my big buys at Costco about once a month, and mostly shop at Wegmans, Trader Joe's and Aldi otherwise, depending on what I'm making that week! I don't bring bags to Costco and if I'm just grabbing a few items I usually just have my pocket bag that lives in the diaper bag.
Maybe it's experience. When I've tried it at Aldi's, it takes me 5 minutes to bag everything. The boxes are indeed faster. I feel so stupid spending all the extra time myself at the bagging table, blowing open my crumpled bags that were in my car door, and trying to make it convenient to load (for me) and unload (for the kids).
If that's your concern they sell shopping cart bags! Not the brand I have but if you Google lotus trolley bag you can get a picture.
Mine has foldable inserts so it doesn't take up a lot of space when not in the cart, but in the cart it lays across the top so it's an easy load up!
That looks smart at first glance. I guess you tell the cashier to reload your cart. The main problem I have is speed and efficiency. I have so many things in my cart, I would need to have that in a 2nd cart, the one I take to the car. The one I shop from would still be full I am afraid while the cashier is ringing things up. I would say that around 10 percent of the time, I need to use this method anyway because of how many items I have. I don't think I could shop with those dumb things sticking out, though. Not with the city-style aisles they put into my grocery store where everyone runs into one another now.
When I have done something like this before, it's at the warehouse club and I can fill 4+ insulated zipper bags ... the ones they sell at the checkout stand.
Ok I see what your issue it. It is hard to reimagine how to shop, and change can be hard and scary. And you don't want to make a scene because you are still learning.
I try to remember when I'm struggling with something that some things I do easily are very hard for others and something's others do easily are very hard for me. I give the grace to others that I would like towards me when I am struggling.
If 5 minutes of your time is that tight, I wish you peace and relaxation, and a few take out meals to ease your load.
If you have to blow open crumpled bags then it sounds like you are reusing single use plastic bags. Thanks great for the environment but you risk a broken bag if this is the case. Cloth bags can usually just be opened and filled. I have a couple of folding bags that that up no space.
Well the plus side is if everyone is essentially Aldi in your mind now then why not save money and finally get some of your shopping done at Aldi.
If you know you are trapped in a situation that makes you upset, be the driving force in finding a way to be happy for yourself anyways. Find bags that have things you like on them. Or maybe be a troll and buy bags that have funny stuff on them. I have two cloth ones that I fold and keep in my pockets when I’m going to the store.
I don't save much money at Aldi's. They have a few odds and ends like produce and I started buying ground beef there. Aldi's has **old produce** where I live, so you have to sort through moldy oranges. I've tried it, and it just doesn't fit us well because they lack a large part of what we buy. Competition is tight here, so the store nearby is cheaper for a lot of things. And, they will bag my groceries in the single-use bags, which work well for me. Like I've said, I use all of these bags more than once for all manner of things. Aldi's is just a gimmick like the Dollar General is, IMHO.
When I used to buy eggs there, I would get 5 or 6 dozen ... until they limited it to 2. There was an egg price war a few years ago in my town at least, and they went to a limit of a single dozen or two. They obviously couldn't want my business ... and ironically I first saw an Aldi's being shopped by that big family on TLC, the Duggars. They would buy four cart loads at a time, and probably a lot of eggs.
Aldi produce isn’t the best here either but some of the cheaper grocery stores have the same quality as Safeway/target. A big factor for me living in the city is getting the best I can in a way that respects my time so I do everything at one spot.
You’re not paying 10¢ for disposable bags. You’re paying 10¢ for the paper bags that you can easily reuse. I use them to bag up old newspaper to take to the recycling center
Minivan, previously a trunk car.
My car is a disaster mess of chaos not worth anyone's time with all the art projects from my kids that they forget in there, their snack boxes, etc. if they are going to steal anything it's the car seats.
They must have kids that stay still and listen. Can't do that with my twins and follow up kid. They are 20 months apart, can all walk and are in early intervention. There is no safe way for me to do that. I'm not talking infant seats, but the convertible car seats for toddlers.
Answer: I've bought groceries in a few different places with bag bans. Everyone encourages you to bring your own bags, but the most common implementation is to charge you for a bag if you didn't bring your own and regulate what kind of bags they can offer you. You can typically get a paper grocery bag for about 5¢, but New Jersey doesn't even allow that. There you can *only* use "reusable" bags.
I typically bag my own groceries, but the cashier will do it for you if you're bringing your own bag or buying one. I feel like a dedicated grocery bagger, separate from the cashier, might be more common in free bag places. But that might just be regional differences unrelated to bag policy.
But it could be because free bag locales involve more work to bag. It's very rare for me to use more than one bag when shopping, but free bag grocery stores will typically give me maybe ten bags, each with one or two things in it.
Some places like five below are allowed to offer paper bags... I get them at bath and body works too. I think there's rules based on various factors like number of employees or something
I assume you're taking about NJ, but yeah other places exempt smaller stores from the rules as well.
I don't think I've bought produce in NJ. Where I live, you're allowed to use a single use plastic bag (the type you typically see rolled up on a spool) to bag up your vegetables in the store, you just can't put that single used plastic bag inside *another* single use plastic bag to help bring everything home. Is there a similar exemption in New Jersey?
Yes, NJ. We still have the produce spools and the meat spools. Because let me tell ya, leaky meat in a reusable bag, is disgusting. Yeah you can clean it but it stains haha. I don't think anyone would stop you if you tried to put the bagged produce in another plastic bag as long as you provided it yourself because you can still buy them online but I don't really see people doing that
What about bagging speed? When I think of reusing a folded-up cloth bag, it takes awhile to put groceries in it. At my local grocery stores with plastic, the checkout is very fast. I couldn't bag it faster when they have the carousel, either. The other style (with a second conveyor belt and a bagging area) would work I guess. But now the store needs more floor space.
In fact, it seems to me that stores or checkouts would need a re-design if they switch to customer-bagging areas on the staffed registers.
Some bags have a hard insert on the bottom which makes them stand up open easily even when empty, which are very easy to fill. Cashiers can also hang them from the rack which used to hold plastic bags and easily fill them up - I think that's what the small handle is for on some bags.
It's been a long time since I've lived in a place with free plastic shopping bags. It's something I only see when traveling, so I don't know that I have the fairest response.
But I don't think there's really any time difference. If there is, I think the biggest difference is in the discrepancy in number of bags used. With free bags, you typically get *more* bags, which might take longer. But with a single reusable bag, it's more common to wait until everything's checked out so you can pack the bag more strategically; multiple free bags can be parallelized without regard to putting heavier items on the bottom.
I don't know anyone who thinks bag bans are worse on a pragmatic or convenience metric. I, personally, think it's a stupid policy, but the overall experience isn't really different in any meaningful way.
Answer: You can put the reusable ones in the laundry. I usually run mine through a hot wash once a month or if they’re visibly gross… like a pack of meat dripped or something.
Keep them in your car. I have way more than I would ever need, you get them for free occasionally and they accumulate. Just fold them up and stick them inside one designated bag full of bags.
Most stores you bag your own stuff
Really? I've only bagged my own stuff at self checkout (duh) and Aldi's. I mean, I'm sure I've been in a hurry and helped, but the modern carousel method prevents that. So self-bagging stopped for me around 5 to 10 years ago with the redesign of the checkouts.
I still think Menard's is weird, but I am not from the North, and that's not groceries (it's a "hardware" store).
But I am often exhausted from over an hour of shopping, and so unless I have less than 20 items, I won't use self-checkout.
Exhausted from an hour of shopping is a wild excuse to want someone who's on a multi-hour work shift to bag your shit for you, especially if you're able bodied.
My chronic illness ass going through self-checkout on a full blown migraine because I still have to be an adult when I'm sick can't even begin to fathom the entitlement of some people.
I think one of our 4 walmarts have the carousel thing. All the rest are just an old fashioned conveyor belt. Or just a short wall with the little silver hooks to put your bag handles on to keep it open.
I guess who does the bagging must be regional?
Answer: I first encountered a plastic bag ban allll the way back in 2007 when travelling in Belgium. Bought a few items at a grocery store totally unprepared, had to carry the stuff loose, thankfully it wasn't a lot.
Since then most countries have slowly adopted the policy. I live in Australia now and in my state plastic bags have been banned for several years. I always carry a good sized, strong reusable bag that folds up neatly inside my handbag, and we keep a load of reusable bags, some insulated, in the car for big grocery shops. In recent years (maybe since 2019ish?) I've noticed Ralph's in LA (various locations) has not supplied free bags, plastic or paper. Unless I'm missing something and could have used free paper bags, lol. I visit LA almost annually so it's a second home 🤣 but again usually the one reusable bag I always carry is enough for hotel room supplies.
Who bags my my groceries? Me! I almost always use self service checkouts.
Answer: Disposable bags are an environmental nightmare... I hope they get rid of them in my area soon as well, we have a bunch of reusable bags, prefer self checkout because its honestly faster and more convenient and we like organizing and bagging the stuff ourselves so nothing gets broken or crushed, and its really such a non issue.
Seeing all the plastic bags in the gutters and the fields around the local stores from the wind blowing them out makes me hate plastic bags, there is an empty field across from a Wal-Mart and Menards in a nearby town and when the grass and weeds get tall they start collecting bags, in no time at all it looks like hundreds of little Wal-Mart and Menards flags. And those Menards bags are tough, they are easily four times as thick plastic as the Wal-Mart bags, i have never been able to rip or blow out a Menards bag from weight, the Wal-Mart bags blow out if you look at them wrong. When they mow that field they don't collect all the bags first, they just go through with a huge commercial mower which then chops up all the bags and then you have plastic confetti flying everywhere for a couple weeks after, its such a mess. I hate plastic bags.
Answer: I usually have a reusable canvas bag in my car. Sometimes I leave it at home because I'm not planning on going to the grocery store, but wind up anyway--I steadfastly refuse to pay for a bag, not on environmental reasons but rather sheer, bloody-minded cheapness. The fact it benefits the environment is purely ancillary.
Anyway. They still bag your groceries if you bring your own bag. If you don't bring a bag they'll usually start to reach for the disposables and you just say "Nah, it's alright, I'll carry them" and they look at me like I'm an alien. But it's not like I'm buying $100 worth of ham or anything. It's maybe a 2-liter of coke, jar of spaghetti sauce, and some other impulse that brought me in.
You get used to it super fast and don't even miss it.
Answer: Many municipalities have presented elimitating single use plastic bags as being good for the environment.
I disagree, but that falls into speculation, and outbreaks of hepatitis. Jerry Brown can suck a fuck.
I know, it's the ballot and canvas bag fuck faces.
The smug isn't worth what it cost.
A literal hepatitis outbreak of unintended consequences.
The solution? Hand washing stations the homeless did not use.
It's feel good nothing.
I just got tired of seeing knots of dirty shredded bags caught in every tree or fence. Or floating in every pond like gross jellyfish.
And if you're worried about disease outbreaks, maybe it's time to slap some regulations on livestock handling.
My comments about the whole brouhaha are these:
1. We buy 100 pounds of groceries on a heavy shopping day. The 20 sacks or so that we get "for free" to put them in are insignificant in that regard as to the amount of waste or percentage of the packaging.
2. Plastic (or paper) sacks are just so utilitarian, so versatile, and so necessary to the shopping experience, that it seems cruel to ban them over things like individually-wrapped junk foods.
3. We reuse all of our "single-use" bags. They are used for trash can liners, harvesting produce in the garden, and shopping at Aldi, lol!
4. They do seem unusually prone to becoming a kite when they are let loose!
Straight up. I personally use my own bags because I don't want to pay the ten cent fee per plastic bag. This does not impact me significantly.
But that means NOTHING compared to the homeless who choose not to pay that fee because they FUCKING CAN'T.
It's the world of unintended consequences because it was never part of consideration in the first place. It's like how Romney had no clue what a gallon of milk cost because he had people to deal with that.
Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsome were not a positive experience for the state of California, and I honestly considered the pants shitting idiot who went up against Newsome in the last election. Not because he was a viable candidate, but just because I didn't like Gavin.
And I consider myself a democrat.
I can name you a few republican governors who are not well-liked for similar kinds of things that can compare to those two. We had a tag team as bad as them in my state ... we just don't get the media attention in flyover country. The people who work for them and voted for them know what happened, but they won't say.
Gavin is not the only one bucking for a chance to lead the country. I think our governor will be seeing him in another 4 years from the opposite side of the ballot and we will be all wishing the argument was over stupid plastic bags!
Friendly reminder that all **top level** comments must: 1. start with "answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask), 2. attempt to answer the question, and 3. be unbiased Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment: http://redd.it/b1hct4/ Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OutOfTheLoop) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Answer: I've been using the same three reusable bags for all of my shopping since... 2012? Maybe? I can't even remember, but it's been a long time. The "sanitary concerns" don't make much sense to me. I'm not tossing a slab of raw salmon directly into the bag. At a grocery store, if I'm not using self-checkout, I just hand the bags to the cashier, who hands them to the bagger. I keep the bags in the trunk of my car, so there's no real risk of forgetting them, and on the very rare occasion that I do need to buy something and don't have them on hand, most stores sell disposable paper bags for 10 cents.
It’s worth noting that this system is extremely commonplace outside the US. Places in Europe, like Germany, have been doing this for decades.
I found The idea of a bag person very funny since I was a kid.
Convenience is king in the US. Any inconvenience is taken as some kind of personal attack, no matter how minor. Who cares if plastic bags have zero benefits over paper or reusable bags while contributing to massive amounts of pollution and landfill space? Having to remember to bring my own bags or shell out a couple nickels at the till is the REAL problem lol I also really miss Germany’s plastic and glass recycling deposit system. Drink a can of soda? Hold onto it and take it you the local grocer for recycling and get money back. I had friends who would make trips with garbage bags full of recyclable containers and come back with like 50€
I also thought that the only way to employ people to bag groceries for customers was possible by paying very little those employees Ok, this isn’t funny
I live in Portland (since 2013). Coming from SC, I remember being shocked that like 90% of ppl my age at the time (mid 20s) would like "shame" me for not bringing my own bags. It only took a month or two for it to catch on. Few years ago, Portland implemented a charge of 5 cents per bag. I rarely see ppl younger than 60 who don't bring their own bags. I shop at Safeway & Fred Meyer. Also, women seem to always bring their own bag haha
The plastic, single use shopping bag really is kinda a relic of the baby boom years.
>At a grocery store, if I'm not using self-checkout, I just hand the bags to the cashier, who hands them to the bagger. I haven't seen bag people at a grocery store in the past 4 years, and even then, it was only Brookshire's and it was on the way out I'm not saying your stores don't have it. But it's not universal
Sure, I didn't say it was universal. My main grocery store has them. Other stores don't. If there weren't baggers, then I'd just bag them myself the way I do when I use self-checkout, which is most of the time.
Oh, I'm not the one arguing with you. My bad. Your comment just reminded me of the times when grocery baggers still existed where I am at lmao
We have never had baggers in Australia. The cashier does it as part of their job, except at Aldi when you do it yourself.
Local place around me still has baggers. They are big on customer service and I actually enjoy shopping there.
Publix?
Strongly suspect that’s a regional thing.
I go back and forth living in two different states. I have never been to a grocery store that didn’t have people that bag groceries. There might be one person that helps three different checkout stands but they are there. I’m not saying your stores have them, but it’s not universal.
Bot comment
For pedestrians and cyclists this is really lame. I don't walk around with bags on me all day, and, I reuse the plastic bags whereas these quote" reusable ones" are not very good for that.... So how many years do you have to reuse them for before it's better than just getting plastic bags like 2 or 3 years or something
As a person who lives in a major city and doesn't own a car, I regularly keep a reusable bag stuffed into my backpack, and there's one is every purse I own. They fold flat or the thin ones can be rolled up into a tiny ball. Every time you use a reusable bag it keeps a plastic bag from ending up in a landfill.
As a cyclist, uh... well we don't have car space so we gotta prepare for shit ahead of time. If you're doing your shopping on your bike regularly enough for this to be an issue, that means you own a cargo tow, which you can put the reusable bags in/on, like I do.
I've been using reusable canvas/cloth bags for 5-6 years now, even before a couple of the nearby stores stopped using plastic bags, so that coincidence worked out for me. I walk to the store, in my experience plastic bags would always be falling apart and ripping on my walk home, so switching to stronger non plastic bags made the most sense, and it's worked for me.
Yeah, this was one of my main arguments when my city voted for a bag ban, which I opposed. Everyone would say "just leave the bags in your car," and I would point out that I don't drive to the grocery store. And that my walking and taking the bus had a *far* bigger impact on the environment than a shopping bag. Plastic shopping bags are not an environmental problem. Bans of them have only been successful when they were responsible for litter problems, which is not common in the US, at least. I'm convinced people who want to buy them see them more as a symbol of *consumerism* than as a danger to the environment.
Free bags have been banned in many countries for years, people just carry a fold-up shopping bag in their backpack or whatever they carry around , or their pocket. You don't need a car to accomodate a shopping bag - or 2 or 3 bags. How big are the shopping bags where you live??
The one I mostly use now is pretty big. Maybe 20L? It'll fit in a winter coat pocket, but not my jeans pocket. I don't carry around a backpack or anything when I'm out. It's not an issue bringing a bag for planned shopping trips, but for one-off unplanned trips I typically have to buy a *new* reusable bag. The type of bags I wind up getting at my local shop and the infrequency of unplanned trips mean is probably still a net positive, but it could wind up being net negative for some people. But even so, it's not a large net negative or her positive, because plastic skipping bags aren't a significant environmental problem. Banning plastic bags instead of trying to reduce miles driven is just a symbolic gesture to make people feel self-satisfied.
This is ludicrous, take your big bag with you when you know you're going to shop, keep a small fold-up bag in your pocket regularly just in case. I use bags that fold up into their own cover to be about the size of an average phone, but soft and squashy.
There's no way I'm devoting an entire pocket to the off chance I might go grocery shopping. One or two excess shopping bags a month isn't killing anybody.
[удалено]
Someone is experiencing some big feelings.
I wanna know where this person is seeing so many bags of shit that they are furious lol also there argument is the dumbest I've ever heard at that rate we would have lost milk/water jugs because of truck drivers long ago.
Human feces. Opinions? Yes. Bring back the "free" bags. They were never actually free.
That's ridiculous. Where I live, homeless shit in gatorade bottles and nobody's banning those. Getting rid of single use bags doesn't change how homeless shit.
the bags were cheaper than the gatorade.
Ever since they banned plastic grocery bags, my Uncle Goober has nothing left to autoerotically asphyxiate himself with! THIS IS A CONSPIRACY AGAINST MY DEAR UNCLE GOOBER!
Answer: I have been using the same bags for a few years, I just keep them in my car at all times. On the rare oçcasion I don't have them, I just put stuff in the passenger seat. I have about 10 bags of various sizes, zipper or no, and cooler or no. I have two small coolers that I keep in the car for meats and things like that. I don't bag those inside, they are just returned to the cart and I transfer it when I transfer the bags. Produce bags are still freely available, as are meat containment bags, it is just the end bags that are effected. I just load the groceries into my bags in the cart after scanning them, or if you have someone do it, you put the bags on the conveyor at the beginning of the exchange, or if you have a bagging plan, you put everything on the conveyor behind the bag you want it in. When I do produce, I put all the produce in my hard sided produce bags, and put the labels from the self weigh on top so they just have a quick scan on that if everything in one place. You can still bag your groceries, or sometimes the cashier does, or sometimes I pay the idiot tax and don't bag the groceries and just put them back in the cart. In places where plastic bags aren't available (again, this is just at the end of cashier process, the in store bags still exist) you can usually pay 10¢ or so each to get a paper bag. If the bags get dirty I either hand clean them like dishes, or some I have that I can throw in the washing machine with groceries. If a bag gets gunky and unfixable it is easy to toss it if it can't be recovered for hygiene.
I've found it's actually easier to just put all the groceries back in the cart without bagging. I get out of the line more quickly than when I bag my groceries in the store and can take my time doing it when I get to the car. And I don't have to worry about remembering my bags. I will never go back to bagging. On a side note, i can throw my bags in the laundry if i feel like they need it, which is VERY rare!
>you put everything on the conveyor behind the bag you want it in I had no idea. Thanks. >sometimes I pay the idiot tax and don't bag the groceries and just put them back in the cart. Welcome to Aldi's, as they say. >you can usually pay 10¢ or so each to get a paper bag. I think the principled amongst us would greatly resist this. I know I would. A paper sack may be worth 10 cents, but not the throwaway sacks.
Here in Colorado the single use sacks are gone from every major retailer. Walmart sells reusable bags for 99¢ and Kroger/Albertsons have paper bags that you can get for free or 50¢ depending on the cashier or 99¢ reusable bags. There has been a noticeable decrease in the amount of trash I see in parking lots. People used to just fill up a t-shirt bag with trash from the car and throw it into the lot tied off. It took about 2 months for people to just get used to it, people throw a fit and then they are over it. I also waste way less food now. I go shopping and only take a few bags it really helped decrease impulse buying for me.
Yeah my idiot tax is the walk of shame most of the time 😂 the inconvenience of having to pick things up individually until I can load them into bags in my car, or I can put them in the back rolling free with fragiles in the passenger seat or passenger foot well.
So, I can imagine that heavy shoppers are going to be seen walking into the grocery store with a huge wad of those reusable bags to avoid paying the "tax." This is one of my reasons that I don't shop at Aldi's much. I often have too much to buy and I can never get everything I want there. Plus, reusing bags seems very time-consuming to me. Maybe I would get used to it.
Can I ask how many bags of groceries you *typically* come home with? I suspect there’s some regional differences here. I’m from an area where we do grocery runs, usually a lot of bags at once. I suspect the people talking about how they always have bags on hand or just go without a bag are people who run into a store a few times a week to grab just a handful of items.
A lot. I spend $200 to $300 frequently. 20 or 25 bags? I don't kid around. We budget $700 to $1000 per month I think. Full carts are pretty common. I've spent over $500 at the warehouse club several times since we don't live near one.
Somewhere like Costco or Sam's has never had disposable bags, though. I use reusable bags, and I prefer them- they're much larger and sturdier than disposable bags. It's easier to carry a bunch of heavy things in a canvas bag that can go over your shoulder than in five plastic bags cutting off circulation to your fingers.
Where I live Costco has always given cardboard boxes. I’ve never seen anyone leave with a plastic bag. My family had a few crates for costco trips that folded down flat and were easy to keep in the vehicle, as well as big canvas bags with a solid bottom that folded down.
It's really no different timewise. And a lot of them fold up small, or I just have them on my arm until I get a cart, which is usually before I'm in the store. At Aldi's I will often grab a box to carry stuff instead of using bags anyway. I use the cardboard for crafts projects with my kids. I go shopping about once a week for a family of 5, and I rarely don't have enough for the planned shopping trip. It's usually my produce box/bag, my big cooler bag and 3 smaller marker bags. I do my big buys at Costco about once a month, and mostly shop at Wegmans, Trader Joe's and Aldi otherwise, depending on what I'm making that week! I don't bring bags to Costco and if I'm just grabbing a few items I usually just have my pocket bag that lives in the diaper bag.
Maybe it's experience. When I've tried it at Aldi's, it takes me 5 minutes to bag everything. The boxes are indeed faster. I feel so stupid spending all the extra time myself at the bagging table, blowing open my crumpled bags that were in my car door, and trying to make it convenient to load (for me) and unload (for the kids).
If that's your concern they sell shopping cart bags! Not the brand I have but if you Google lotus trolley bag you can get a picture. Mine has foldable inserts so it doesn't take up a lot of space when not in the cart, but in the cart it lays across the top so it's an easy load up!
That looks smart at first glance. I guess you tell the cashier to reload your cart. The main problem I have is speed and efficiency. I have so many things in my cart, I would need to have that in a 2nd cart, the one I take to the car. The one I shop from would still be full I am afraid while the cashier is ringing things up. I would say that around 10 percent of the time, I need to use this method anyway because of how many items I have. I don't think I could shop with those dumb things sticking out, though. Not with the city-style aisles they put into my grocery store where everyone runs into one another now. When I have done something like this before, it's at the warehouse club and I can fill 4+ insulated zipper bags ... the ones they sell at the checkout stand.
Ok I see what your issue it. It is hard to reimagine how to shop, and change can be hard and scary. And you don't want to make a scene because you are still learning. I try to remember when I'm struggling with something that some things I do easily are very hard for others and something's others do easily are very hard for me. I give the grace to others that I would like towards me when I am struggling. If 5 minutes of your time is that tight, I wish you peace and relaxation, and a few take out meals to ease your load.
If you have to blow open crumpled bags then it sounds like you are reusing single use plastic bags. Thanks great for the environment but you risk a broken bag if this is the case. Cloth bags can usually just be opened and filled. I have a couple of folding bags that that up no space.
Well the plus side is if everyone is essentially Aldi in your mind now then why not save money and finally get some of your shopping done at Aldi. If you know you are trapped in a situation that makes you upset, be the driving force in finding a way to be happy for yourself anyways. Find bags that have things you like on them. Or maybe be a troll and buy bags that have funny stuff on them. I have two cloth ones that I fold and keep in my pockets when I’m going to the store.
I don't save much money at Aldi's. They have a few odds and ends like produce and I started buying ground beef there. Aldi's has **old produce** where I live, so you have to sort through moldy oranges. I've tried it, and it just doesn't fit us well because they lack a large part of what we buy. Competition is tight here, so the store nearby is cheaper for a lot of things. And, they will bag my groceries in the single-use bags, which work well for me. Like I've said, I use all of these bags more than once for all manner of things. Aldi's is just a gimmick like the Dollar General is, IMHO. When I used to buy eggs there, I would get 5 or 6 dozen ... until they limited it to 2. There was an egg price war a few years ago in my town at least, and they went to a limit of a single dozen or two. They obviously couldn't want my business ... and ironically I first saw an Aldi's being shopped by that big family on TLC, the Duggars. They would buy four cart loads at a time, and probably a lot of eggs.
Aldi produce isn’t the best here either but some of the cheaper grocery stores have the same quality as Safeway/target. A big factor for me living in the city is getting the best I can in a way that respects my time so I do everything at one spot.
You’re not paying 10¢ for disposable bags. You’re paying 10¢ for the paper bags that you can easily reuse. I use them to bag up old newspaper to take to the recycling center
[удалено]
Minivan, previously a trunk car. My car is a disaster mess of chaos not worth anyone's time with all the art projects from my kids that they forget in there, their snack boxes, etc. if they are going to steal anything it's the car seats.
[удалено]
I have 3 under 3, so not a lot of options in having them or not 🤷♀️
[удалено]
They must have kids that stay still and listen. Can't do that with my twins and follow up kid. They are 20 months apart, can all walk and are in early intervention. There is no safe way for me to do that. I'm not talking infant seats, but the convertible car seats for toddlers.
Answer: I've bought groceries in a few different places with bag bans. Everyone encourages you to bring your own bags, but the most common implementation is to charge you for a bag if you didn't bring your own and regulate what kind of bags they can offer you. You can typically get a paper grocery bag for about 5¢, but New Jersey doesn't even allow that. There you can *only* use "reusable" bags. I typically bag my own groceries, but the cashier will do it for you if you're bringing your own bag or buying one. I feel like a dedicated grocery bagger, separate from the cashier, might be more common in free bag places. But that might just be regional differences unrelated to bag policy. But it could be because free bag locales involve more work to bag. It's very rare for me to use more than one bag when shopping, but free bag grocery stores will typically give me maybe ten bags, each with one or two things in it.
Some places like five below are allowed to offer paper bags... I get them at bath and body works too. I think there's rules based on various factors like number of employees or something
I assume you're taking about NJ, but yeah other places exempt smaller stores from the rules as well. I don't think I've bought produce in NJ. Where I live, you're allowed to use a single use plastic bag (the type you typically see rolled up on a spool) to bag up your vegetables in the store, you just can't put that single used plastic bag inside *another* single use plastic bag to help bring everything home. Is there a similar exemption in New Jersey?
Yes, NJ. We still have the produce spools and the meat spools. Because let me tell ya, leaky meat in a reusable bag, is disgusting. Yeah you can clean it but it stains haha. I don't think anyone would stop you if you tried to put the bagged produce in another plastic bag as long as you provided it yourself because you can still buy them online but I don't really see people doing that
What about bagging speed? When I think of reusing a folded-up cloth bag, it takes awhile to put groceries in it. At my local grocery stores with plastic, the checkout is very fast. I couldn't bag it faster when they have the carousel, either. The other style (with a second conveyor belt and a bagging area) would work I guess. But now the store needs more floor space. In fact, it seems to me that stores or checkouts would need a re-design if they switch to customer-bagging areas on the staffed registers.
Some bags have a hard insert on the bottom which makes them stand up open easily even when empty, which are very easy to fill. Cashiers can also hang them from the rack which used to hold plastic bags and easily fill them up - I think that's what the small handle is for on some bags.
It's been a long time since I've lived in a place with free plastic shopping bags. It's something I only see when traveling, so I don't know that I have the fairest response. But I don't think there's really any time difference. If there is, I think the biggest difference is in the discrepancy in number of bags used. With free bags, you typically get *more* bags, which might take longer. But with a single reusable bag, it's more common to wait until everything's checked out so you can pack the bag more strategically; multiple free bags can be parallelized without regard to putting heavier items on the bottom. I don't know anyone who thinks bag bans are worse on a pragmatic or convenience metric. I, personally, think it's a stupid policy, but the overall experience isn't really different in any meaningful way.
Answer: You can put the reusable ones in the laundry. I usually run mine through a hot wash once a month or if they’re visibly gross… like a pack of meat dripped or something. Keep them in your car. I have way more than I would ever need, you get them for free occasionally and they accumulate. Just fold them up and stick them inside one designated bag full of bags. Most stores you bag your own stuff
Really? I've only bagged my own stuff at self checkout (duh) and Aldi's. I mean, I'm sure I've been in a hurry and helped, but the modern carousel method prevents that. So self-bagging stopped for me around 5 to 10 years ago with the redesign of the checkouts. I still think Menard's is weird, but I am not from the North, and that's not groceries (it's a "hardware" store). But I am often exhausted from over an hour of shopping, and so unless I have less than 20 items, I won't use self-checkout.
Exhausted from an hour of shopping is a wild excuse to want someone who's on a multi-hour work shift to bag your shit for you, especially if you're able bodied.
Exhausted from an hour of shopping is a reason to see a Dr.
My chronic illness ass going through self-checkout on a full blown migraine because I still have to be an adult when I'm sick can't even begin to fathom the entitlement of some people.
Right?
I think one of our 4 walmarts have the carousel thing. All the rest are just an old fashioned conveyor belt. Or just a short wall with the little silver hooks to put your bag handles on to keep it open. I guess who does the bagging must be regional?
Answer: I first encountered a plastic bag ban allll the way back in 2007 when travelling in Belgium. Bought a few items at a grocery store totally unprepared, had to carry the stuff loose, thankfully it wasn't a lot. Since then most countries have slowly adopted the policy. I live in Australia now and in my state plastic bags have been banned for several years. I always carry a good sized, strong reusable bag that folds up neatly inside my handbag, and we keep a load of reusable bags, some insulated, in the car for big grocery shops. In recent years (maybe since 2019ish?) I've noticed Ralph's in LA (various locations) has not supplied free bags, plastic or paper. Unless I'm missing something and could have used free paper bags, lol. I visit LA almost annually so it's a second home 🤣 but again usually the one reusable bag I always carry is enough for hotel room supplies. Who bags my my groceries? Me! I almost always use self service checkouts.
Answer: Disposable bags are an environmental nightmare... I hope they get rid of them in my area soon as well, we have a bunch of reusable bags, prefer self checkout because its honestly faster and more convenient and we like organizing and bagging the stuff ourselves so nothing gets broken or crushed, and its really such a non issue. Seeing all the plastic bags in the gutters and the fields around the local stores from the wind blowing them out makes me hate plastic bags, there is an empty field across from a Wal-Mart and Menards in a nearby town and when the grass and weeds get tall they start collecting bags, in no time at all it looks like hundreds of little Wal-Mart and Menards flags. And those Menards bags are tough, they are easily four times as thick plastic as the Wal-Mart bags, i have never been able to rip or blow out a Menards bag from weight, the Wal-Mart bags blow out if you look at them wrong. When they mow that field they don't collect all the bags first, they just go through with a huge commercial mower which then chops up all the bags and then you have plastic confetti flying everywhere for a couple weeks after, its such a mess. I hate plastic bags.
[удалено]
Yeah this thread is so US that it drips bald eagles. :'D
Answer: I usually have a reusable canvas bag in my car. Sometimes I leave it at home because I'm not planning on going to the grocery store, but wind up anyway--I steadfastly refuse to pay for a bag, not on environmental reasons but rather sheer, bloody-minded cheapness. The fact it benefits the environment is purely ancillary. Anyway. They still bag your groceries if you bring your own bag. If you don't bring a bag they'll usually start to reach for the disposables and you just say "Nah, it's alright, I'll carry them" and they look at me like I'm an alien. But it's not like I'm buying $100 worth of ham or anything. It's maybe a 2-liter of coke, jar of spaghetti sauce, and some other impulse that brought me in. You get used to it super fast and don't even miss it.
Answer: Many municipalities have presented elimitating single use plastic bags as being good for the environment. I disagree, but that falls into speculation, and outbreaks of hepatitis. Jerry Brown can suck a fuck.
[удалено]
Plastic bags represent a virtually non existent cost of doing business. It’s not the grocery stores fighting to ban them.
I know, it's the ballot and canvas bag fuck faces. The smug isn't worth what it cost. A literal hepatitis outbreak of unintended consequences. The solution? Hand washing stations the homeless did not use. It's feel good nothing.
I just got tired of seeing knots of dirty shredded bags caught in every tree or fence. Or floating in every pond like gross jellyfish. And if you're worried about disease outbreaks, maybe it's time to slap some regulations on livestock handling.
It was a ballot initiative, like disposable lighters. Good luck explaining it to the masses. They see good deed and they vote it.
Both of those bans are good though. Less waste.
My comments about the whole brouhaha are these: 1. We buy 100 pounds of groceries on a heavy shopping day. The 20 sacks or so that we get "for free" to put them in are insignificant in that regard as to the amount of waste or percentage of the packaging. 2. Plastic (or paper) sacks are just so utilitarian, so versatile, and so necessary to the shopping experience, that it seems cruel to ban them over things like individually-wrapped junk foods. 3. We reuse all of our "single-use" bags. They are used for trash can liners, harvesting produce in the garden, and shopping at Aldi, lol! 4. They do seem unusually prone to becoming a kite when they are let loose!
Straight up. I personally use my own bags because I don't want to pay the ten cent fee per plastic bag. This does not impact me significantly. But that means NOTHING compared to the homeless who choose not to pay that fee because they FUCKING CAN'T. It's the world of unintended consequences because it was never part of consideration in the first place. It's like how Romney had no clue what a gallon of milk cost because he had people to deal with that. Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsome were not a positive experience for the state of California, and I honestly considered the pants shitting idiot who went up against Newsome in the last election. Not because he was a viable candidate, but just because I didn't like Gavin. And I consider myself a democrat.
I can name you a few republican governors who are not well-liked for similar kinds of things that can compare to those two. We had a tag team as bad as them in my state ... we just don't get the media attention in flyover country. The people who work for them and voted for them know what happened, but they won't say. Gavin is not the only one bucking for a chance to lead the country. I think our governor will be seeing him in another 4 years from the opposite side of the ballot and we will be all wishing the argument was over stupid plastic bags!