Comment by aimor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aimor | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This is what I remember as well. I remember my mother using her own rope net grocery bags as an alternative to the paper ones.

I remember in school we switched from single-portion paper milk cartons to square bags of milk that you punctured with a plastic straw. This was sold to us along with a muppet skit explaining how to use the milk bags (the muppets rated it "one thumb up and one thumb down, to cover the straw hole when you puncture the bag"). There was a poster in the cafeteria comparing the giant pile of milk cartons relative to the small pile of plastic pouches. We paid much more attention to what adults said than they ever gave us credit for, and they had been telling us about renewable and non-renewable resources, about recycling, about landfill space, and about externality. We knew, even if the rational outcome was the same, that it was more than big pile vs small pile.

I remember when bag fees started showing up, and at the checkout grocery stores began selling... reusable plastic bags. People seem to collect these now, maybe 30-40 per household, which is fine by me I'd rather have 40 bags in someone's pantry than 4,000 floating around outside. But it seems excessive. I've accumulated about that many: I on occasion "win a prize", family members bring items over and leave the carrying bags behind, donate money to anyone and you're sure to get a tote. I actually don't have any rope bags though I wish I did, my mother still has hers and she's not parting with them. I think the rope bags are more convenient than anything else, but then what happens to the 40 odd plastic bags I've accumulated?

> what happens to the 40 odd plastic bags I've accumulated?

We always used them as garbage can liners. Now that stores no longer have plastic bags we have to buy plastic bags. So instead of reusing the plastic bags we brought our groceries home in, we are buying brand new plastic bags instead. The same number of plastic bags are entering the landfill. The only difference is that now we have to pay for them.

I don't know where you live and how garbage disposal works where you live, but in general I would urge people not to do this. Proper garbage can bags are important because they don't spill out easily. This makes the job of the garbage disposal people much easier. Imagine having someone overworked and underpaid, working on autopilot and at fast pace, and suddenly your trash spills out. You will ruin that person's day.

At least in Los Angeles there are mechanized arms to pick up residential bins. I now live on the East Coast and that is no longer the case and definitely can’t use shopping bags as liners without consolidating them into a standard 13 gallon bag.

Generally they're used for smaller trash containers like you might find in a bathroom. We use them like this and when they're full they get tied closed (the handles make this easy) and placed in the larger main trash bag in the kitchen.

Where I live, there’s no manual handling of individual bags by waste management employees. You throw your trash bags directly into a large compactor; from there, it’s handled in bulk.

Where I lived previously, residents brought bags to a warehouse-like building maintained by the town. You dropped your trash through openings in the side of the building that resembled windows. Town employees used tractors equipped with giant claws to scoop up the trash and load it into dumpsters, which were then brought to landfills.

> I don't know where you live and how garbage disposal works where you live

a dump truck with a giant mechanical arm grabs my trash can, picks up over the top of the truck, flipping it around in the process, and then shakes it violently.

Same here. I’m very surprised to learn that these aren’t universal.

Are there really still places In the US where people actually have to physically manhandle garbage into a truck?!

Boston. New York. San Francisco (inner).

Yup. Many rural areas like ours have weekly garbage collection. It's an ancient truck, with the same 3 guys ever since I moved here nearly 10 years ago. They hand toss every single bag. And when the truck breaks down they collect the trash in a pickup truck and handle it twice, once loading it and once unloading it.

My wife has been hoarding them for the last 10 years. I agree with reuse, but at the rate we use them vs the rate we consume them we have enough for the next 200 years.

I think it's more efficient all around to pay for them.

You could bring them back with you to reuse at the grocery store to balance use as liners vs new consumption. That's what I did before the plastic bag bans went into effect. Now I buy liners.

> The only difference is that now we have to pay for them.

Nitpick: you always had to pay for them, the cost was built in to the purchase price.

So, now that they no longer provide bags, but prices have not gone down at all, the grocery stores are suddenly seeing their profits increase?

> We always used them as garbage can liners

I started doing this "before it was cool" back in the 1990s. I wasn't aware of other people doing it so I couldn't understand why they weren't. I learned since then and I still do it today. Why use something once when you can at least use it twice?

Nothing is stopping you from reusing the plastic bags. My plastic bag accumulation rate is low because I always have one or two - they are very small when folded - in my backpack.

I do the same. Plastic bags are quite convenient, are often easier to clean than fancy reusable bags, can be given away without a second thought, and fit nicely in a backpack when folded. Whenever I get a new one, I fold it up and put it in a box in my coat closet. Going shopping? Grab a few, stick them in my car or backpack.

They last practically forever—certainly longer than the cheap reusable bags that have a tendency to tear and stain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com