Seattle to charge .20 for plastic/paper bags
 

On Monday, the Seattle City Council approved a 20-cent fee, starting in January, for each disposable paper or plastic bag used at grocery, drug and convenience stores.

While other U.S. cities have banned plastic bags, Seattle is believed to be the first to discourage use by charging a fee.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...rybags29m.html


Like other earth-friendly northwesterners, I recycle and do other stuff to minimize my impact on mother nature, but this bugs me. Seattle's mayor is a nanny.

That's kind of a bummer. I know that we re-use every single plastic bag for trash, in our small trash cans, in our cars, etc. If such a thing happens here, I will have to go buy bags just for my little trash cans.

Once you have re-used all of your little bags, you will have to either pay for new ones or buy and use those small "green" totes. Most of them are pretty small, so you'd have to get a bunch of them.

Something else mentioned in the article is recycling table scraps. What does that mean? Having a separate bag for food trash? We also re-use those little bags for that kind of trash and wrap it tight so it doesn't stink up the bigger garbage can. You can't put everything down a garbage disposal, so I would love to know what people are going to be doing with "table scaps".

Chicken bones, anyone?

We use the "green" totes that the grocery store sells for $0.90. Because they hold their shape, they actually hold a lot more -- maybe twice as much more -- than the plastic bags. And things don't get as smushed.

Composting.

But I agree with Peppy about the apparent nanny mentality.

I re-use all my little bags too, for trash in small wastebaskets and to take my lunch to work, so I will then have to purchase bags for that purpose. That does seem pretty silly.

I have been eying the reusable bags and am thinking about buying them but here are my two concerns. Maybe someone who uses them can help:

1) How do you launder them? After a bag has had raw meat in it, it's going to have to be washed. Do they hold up in the laundry? Can they be dried?

2) Where in the world do you put them while you shop? I figure I usually have about 20 grocery bags per shopping trip. If I buy 20 of those reusable bags, where do I put them while I'm filling my cart with groceries? If I put them in the cart, there's not room for the groceries or the groceries will end up on top of them. Maybe a special backpack for my bags? This is a logistical problem, for sure.

ETA: Just read MysticCat's post and have to note that even though you can fit twice as much in the reusable bags, you might not want to LIFT twice as much in one bag.. like, I don't want more than two half gallons of milk in one bag!

A lot of people are saying just what you did - they re-use the plastic bags to carry their lunch to work, pick up dog doo, line trash cans, etc. so now they will have to BUY the non-recyclable glad/hefty bags for those purposes.

They have also banned styrofoam containers starting in january, and come 2010 plastic to-go containers and plastic utensils.

Regarding the recycling of table scraps, I assume they mean composting. A lot of people do that here anyway, along with using rain barrells for watering plants. Even my office has a compost bin. The city just doesn't want people throwing away food in the garbage that is actually good for the earth. We also have yard waste recycling, so people can probably throw their table scraps in there if they don't want to have their own compost pile.

It has gotten very easy to recycle here now that all recyclable materials can go in one huge bin (no more sorting!), and most homes have just tiny garbage bins and big recycling cans as well as a yard waste can. Seattle has gone so far as to force single family homes to recycle, and soon fines will be imposed if the utility decides you're not recycling enough of your waste.

Seattle's mayor seems to believe the best way of forcing a change in behavior is to tax the "bad" behavior - in this case plastic and paper bags. I'm glad I only work in Seattle and live outside the city limits, because I'm sick of hearing him preach about "doing the right thing" and taking choice out of the people's hands on little things such as this when he has MUCH bigger problems he should be tending to.

Okay, I made the switch to the reusable bags that the grocery store sells. Like MC, the bags I purchased are square in shape and hold a TON of groceries. I am in my third trimester of pregnancy and find it much, much easier to carry these bags than any other kind. The weight just seems to distribute well.

I shop for myself, my husband and a toddler. I usually need 3-4 bags for a full cart of groceries. (I leave out milk, cokes, etc... it is just easier to carry those separate). Again, you can get so much more in these types of bags.

I also now carry the bags (which have the grocery store name on it!) everywhere I shop... Target, Lowe's, Babies R Us, etc. They are the best things ever.

As for meat... at my grocery store, they still wrap the meat in a plastic bag first, and then put it in the big bag.

I have been using these since last Dec, and have not had to wash them at all. They are all still completely clean.

As an aside.. I heard that the bags that I have were made from recycled plastic and plastic bags. Not sure if it is true, but feeling the texture, there could be something too that.

All in all, I give the bags an A+.

ETA: I just put the bags in the cart. Again, you will only need 3-4 for a ton of groceries and they fold down very well.

I have a general question - do you all have to pay for garbage/recycling? Our town doesn't do it; we pay a private company to haul our stuff away.

I know that they don't do composting, and my town has no public resources for it, so I should do some research on it. The image I have in my head is a stinky pile in someone's backyard with flies and bugs all over it. I know that you can buy manual "machines" and such, but those are a few hundred bucks.

Food garbage is one thing that I can't stand to handle. Cat litter, no problem. Food garbage - I can't even dump old stuff from the fridge. I make my husband do it. It makes me literally gag. Having to contain it and then haul it to a pile or bin in the backyard? Seriously, just the thought is a nightmare for me lol. :eek:

Ditto what Blondie said. Meat still gets wrapped in the smaller plastic bags (like the kind for vegetables). And I never put a gallon of milk in any bag, but I do lay 2-liter bottles of Coke in the bottoms of the bags. They really are much easier to carry than plastic bags, even when full.

I keep the bags in the back of my car and just put in them in the shopping cart when I go in the store. If I'm just buying a few things, then I carry one bag under my arm. The biggest challenge at first is just remembering to get them out of the car and take them in the store.

At least one store here discounts your grocery purchase for something like $0.05 for every reusable bag you provide.

As for poop bags for the dog, I get bio-degradable bags (made from corn starch) for that purpose at the pet store. If I'm out of those, I use the bag that the newspaper comes in.

So far, we really haven't had the problem of wishing we had plastic grocery bags to use for other purposes. (We usually have a handful of them around anyway.)

As for ree's other question, we have city garbage and recycling curbside collection once a week. We pay a monthly fee to the city for it along with the water bill. The city's solid waste services department also sells composting equipment at good prices. (An Earth Machine for $32 and a kitchen pail for $6.)

It doesn't have to be smelly at all. :D

I knit mesh bags out of cotton and they stretch pretty well. I've got a couple different sizes and styles and we really like them. I bought some new cotton last weekend to make a "manly" one for VandalShyster he can keep in his truck.

We have been hoarding the plastic bags because they've already been banned in San Francisco and the daycare at my church uses them for diapers so we're going to give them to my mom. We also use them in the bathroom trash, but twenty cents in kind of cheap, how about a nickel, the same discount they give you if you bring your own in anyway.

I recommend buying only 3-4 to start, until you see how many you need. These bags are a lot sturdier, so you can fill them. I often found the baggers wasted a lot of space in the plastic throw away bags so they didn't break.

Mystic Cat and I seem to have the same reusable bag routine (although when I'm running in for a few things, I just use the bag as my basket), so I don't have much more to add. However, I wanted to post a picture of the bags that I our local grocery store has...pardon the bass in the corner, the bags are mesh and very sturdy so one of the local fishing clubs uses them for their weigh-in bags and that was the only place I could find a picture.

http://i34.tinypic.com/33mna7r.jpg

Anyway I really like them, and I have 2 bags and that's usually enough for me, however I'm usually only shopping for myself.

They're selling these kind now too, but they're not as big and they look more prone to absorbing moisture to me, I haven't bothered with these ones.

http://i38.tinypic.com/6xt7xk.gif

If you do end up having to buy paper or plastic bags, instead of reusing them for trashcan liners you could always just bring them back to the store for your next grocery trip and reuse them that way.

I also use the reusable bags at the commissary and love them. I leave them in my trunk, along with my market bag (the large straw tote I use at the farmer's market). They are easy to carry, easily filled, and store well. I have 7 bags, but I think there's only been one or two trips where I've used all of them. I have washed them (handwash cycle w/ cold water) and they came out fine.

As for the idea of charging for the plastic bags, that idea is not completely foreign to me. They do it everywhere here in Germany. You HAVE to bring your own bags to the Aldi or get charged 5 cents of a euro for every plastic bag you use. But I can see how it's kind of dumb to charge, especially since a lot of people reuse/recycle them. I don't buy trashbags... I think it's dumb to literally put my money in the trash... and that's what I'd be doing if I lived in Seattle if I were forced to buy plastic bags. And .20 seems a little ludacrous.

Exactly. It always drove me crazy that the baggers would only put three or four things in a plastic bag. Our reusable bags have a piece of cardboard that goes in the bottom to provide structure -- makes it much easier to put more things in it.

My guess, AGDee, is that if you have about 20 plastic bags per grocery trip, you'd use about 5-8 of the reusable bags, tops.

FWIW, this is the bag we got from our grocery store:

http://www.earthsavvyshop.com/catalog/ESS20_large.jpg

You can order them from the manufacturer at 20 bags for $26, but the grocery store sells them for $0.99 each. They also sell thermal reusable bags for (I think) $2.99. I like these bags because they don't have a store logo on them.

I use the bags for garbage bags and cleaning the litter boxes.
I guess I need to remember to keep my Trader Joes canvas bags in the trunk

I did see a thermal bag for sale that we'll probably get for our frozen and/or refrigerated stuff if it is a warmer day or there's another errand involved. Or I could just bring the cooler if I planned ahead.