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Comment by skybrian | Hacker News Reader

It probably works for groceries, but for takeout, instead of using flimsy plastic bags, restaurants here now use sturdy plastic bags, because they aren’t “single use.”

These bags are heavier, so it seems doubtful that plastic use has gone down. Does anyone track this?

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They used these thicker bags 20+ years ago, then went to the thin ones. Now we all figured out how useless those thin ones are. And we’re back to the thick ones.

It’s quite shocking visiting a place with no bag restrictions like Florida or Nevada, where they just automatically bag even the simplest purchase of tictacs.

One thing I like about Japanese stores, they ask you if you want a bag....partly because they charge you for it (typically 3-5 Yen). For small objects at a convenience store, I often skip the bag. I typically carry my own fabric bags for deliberate grocery shopping, but if I forget I spend the few extra cents, and typically re-use the plastic bags around the house, usually as intermediate trash bags.

I think an outright ban is overkill.

IMHO, an outright ban is exactly the right thing. The typical person will not turn down a bag given for free every time they visit the store. They get home, unpack and dump the plastic bag. Having people purchase reusable bags makes folks think and actually plan their supermarket visits (how am I going to carry my purchases). In Kenya, single use bags are completely banned, in less than 5 years, plastic bags on trees [1] became a thing of the past.

1. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/df/8f/52/df8f52035377cf815650...

On the other hand since we don't get the plastic bags for free anymore I'm usually struggling to find a sturdy plastic bag at home when I need one, e.g. to wrap shoes in a travel bag.

No, that's not an argument about not banning them, just a funny observation how these things change. I also used to often not buy any trash bags and just use the decently sized grocery store ones, but maybe in never tossing but reusing them I was already an outlier.

At the least, those heavier plastic bags are less likely to blow away and get into the water and general environment. The heavier bags are more likely to end up in recycling or trash.

We use those heavier plastic bags as trash bags as that is about how often we end up with one when we don’t have our reusable ready. It worked out well. Recently the grocery switched to paper bags without handles. Those don’t work as well for trash bags and without handles they are poor grocery bags.

pretty sure the ones without a handle were invented a person who simply loaded them from the cart into their trunk and then from their garage into their house. No rain, 5 meters. But surely not something you'd carry home by foot for just 500m.

I've seen that to, grocery stores with the "really thick nice bags" like you see at a hardware store. They can't cost that much more, and they REALLY ARE nice, but they don't do much to defeat the problem.

really nice, tho

Do you have a visual? I always hated the thick bags because they are stiff and hard to work with. Thin bags were much easier to re-use for purposes like bin liners. And the shape was just awful.

I’m referring to something like this. https://www.google.com/search?q=vons+plastic+bag&hl=en&prmd=...

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