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.
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