Plastic bags being fazed out: What will we use?

Question

I was just thinking about how plastic bags are being fazed out.

Through out the world millions of bags must be used for garbage.

What are we going to replace them with?

(From the musings of a bored mind.)

Answer 1

Paper bags?

Answer 2

The reason they came up with those plastic bags is that heavy grocery loads tended to rip through the paper ones. If it was raining out when you were carrying those bags of groceries it was almost a certainty that the bags would start to rip through and your purchases would be smashed in the parking lot.

I think we are heading for another bunch of poorly-thought- through restrictions with unintended consequences, the same result we always get when legislators want to do something flashy without considering alternatives.

I think the replacement will be thicker paper bags, triples of the existing paper ones, those cardboard cartons you get at Costco, or more people driving back and forth to make more shopping trips since they are limited in what they can carry-out by the newest set of rules.

Has anyone considered mandatory recycling of the bags (some stores have voluntary recycling). It will beat requiring that everyone bring some filthy cloth bag from their own house to the market every time they want to buy anything. Once those kind of bags pay a weekly visit to a food store it will become like a bus terminal for roaches to hop off one bag and hop onto the next bag that goes into that cart.

Answer 3

Re-use paper bags or use cloth mesh bags for shopping like the kind you see people using in other countries. Since about six months our recycling center for a group of communities in southeast Michigan - www.socrra.org - is accepting plastic shopping bags. They didn't used to do so. But you must bring them in yourself, not put them in your recycling containing for weekly pickup. Also use those little shopping carts on two wheels with a liner in them..

The thing about plastic bags, they don't ever break down, they last forever. SOCRRA has evidently found a buyer that makes use of them. I may be wrong, but I heard somewhere that these bags can be recycled to make things like scarves and other clothing items. Doesn't Patagonia do this or maybe they use plastic pop bottles. Yeah, Michigan's a pop state. See www.popvssoda.com.

Answer 4

I guess we will go back to what was used before....Paper but I don't think plastic bags are being fazed out..

Answer 5

Yea, liberals are for the no longer ordinary hitting subject concerns like plastic rubbish bags or banning Christmas wood and prayer. do exactly no longer ask a lib how they could take care of the war In Iraq, lol

Answer 6

Paper or cloth..I hope cloth..so we can save our trees! Evryone can bring a cloth sack to the store and bag thier groceries in them..I pray people dont get on the paper bag train..the factorys that make them also pollute our streams and waterways not even to think about the air..CLOTH is where its at..you can reuse them over and over again and wash them.

Answer 7

Since most are from recycled materials it's likely to be awhile before we no longer see plastic bags as a way to carry food items or hold trash.
That doesn't strictly lessen the impact they have on our environment, but does, in some ways save energies better used elsewhere.
Paper bags will probably follow the trend as well.

In the USA, likely the largest "throw away" society on the planet, we probably should consider better conservation measures, purchase in larger bulk saving packaging, use food wastes as compost building material, etc.

A better, but more costly answer might just be for manufacturers to create something completely biodegradeable to replace plastic bags, at least.

Eons from now explorers digging into our geologic past will be finding layers of "Popcorn" as well.

Steven Wolf

Answer 8

some places have done this already and gone with paper .
other places are not doing that instead they are going with the permanent kind of bag you would re use over and over.
i suppose it could be made of many different natural materials.

Answer 9

They are currently trying cornstarch and soy to make plastic bags that are more earth frendly.

Answer 10

brown paper bags or those expensive cloth bags.