Cloth or Canvas grocery bags
 

As of Jan. 1, 2020, Oregon banned all plastic bags from grocery stores. This sounds environmentally friendly, but there is a huge health hazard, too. The University of Arizona and Loma Linda University have both discovered unacceptable amounts of ecoli and salmonella bacteria in cloth and canvas bags used for bagging groceries. Meat juices tend to leak onto the material and can contaminate everything in your bag. Their suggestions are that you put the canvas and cloth bags thru your washing machine on hot water after every use. If you use the insulated bags to keep meat and ice cream cold until you get home, wipe the interior down with anti-bacterial wipes after every use. Please don’t be careless about this, as it appears plastic bags are on the way out nationwide.😉

Seems like it’s going to be online delivery only instead of personal shopping. Seriously, who is going to do all that? Who has the time or the energy? (We are not just talking about retired people.) The grocery stores as we know them will go the way of the outdoor markets of long ago. Maybe that’s a good thing. Here’s to the future!

Exactly! Where am I ever going to find the time to throw something in the washing machine? Where's my weekly planner? I just don't know where I'm going to shoehorn this new and daunting task into my day.

I'm sure that Oregons efforts to reduce plastic will have a profound effect on the amount of plastic tossed away. Most articles I read about this waste shows that it is almost always the asian countries that use the most and contaminate the oceans worst with tossing the bags in the garbage. But our leaders and educated friends will still try to save the world with our wallets.

I don’t agree with no plastic bags.
It has been said before about the ecoli and lead found on those annoying cloth bags.

I always put meat in a clear plastic bag so not to worry about any problems. People can get sick from raw meat/juices.

I recycle those same plastic bags.

Why aren’t we given a choice?

I said that about flossing.

Because those plastic bags--and those plastic water bottles, by the way--can only be recycled once, twice at the most. After that they end up in the land fill unless some enterprising company can figure out how to make benches or playground equipment out of them.


Don't kid yourself about recycling. It doesn't really work. Reducing and reusing is the way to go.

You can also buy heavy-duty plastic bags, that can be used for all the "wet" foods in your cloth bag. Insulated bags are also washable. I use an insulated bag, plus the heavy duty ones you can get at Aldi's for something like 25 cents, plus a couple of cloth bags. The cloth bags never have anything leaking in it as a result, and I don't have to wash them after each use.

...and they've been throwing away the plastic that WE have been sending them, because WE don't have enough landfills or recycling programs to do the work ourselves. That's all ending now that China has rejected our garbage in the last year.

The plastic has to go SOMEWHERE. Unless and until we reduce its manufacture and find something productive to do with what we already have.

Because most take the path of least resistance or least work and effort.

It’s a generational issue. Change does not come easy to many. In my parents time paper bags were used, along with cloth. We use cloth and coated bags for any shopping, as do our children and grands. So far nobody died from cloth bags For the last 90 years, in our family, but it could happen:popcorn:

I has no idea, thanks for the info!!!

You are correct. The "reusable" type of bags are not as great a thing as people think. Yes, they will get contaminated and most people will not wash after every use. So, the risk of getting sick from something will go up. Why not biodegradable plastic bags or recycled paper bags for some applications.

You are given a choice. As has been said before - You can use any kind of "bag" you want - Cloth, Plastic, Rubber, Wood, Steel, etc. The only difference is that you will have to supply it.

Actually, I called Publix on 466 and they had NO information in their office about plastic bags being stopped. (As posted earlier in this thread)

I am not a "greenie" but I think use of one use plastic is not good. Plastics don't "go away, they don't bio-degrade. I try to remember to grab the bags I have in the back of the van when I shop but I don't always.

What I don't understand is the sarcasm and acting superior attitude by some to get their point across.

You don't change anyone's mind by making them mad.

Waste-to-energy
 

Or, the Villages could choose to send ALL of its waste, and un-recyclables - to a waste-to-energy plant where it is incinerated and the energy is recovered as electricity that is sent back for us to run our air conditioners - i.e. sustainable, clean, renewable energy.

i agree. save plastic for messy/leaky items, and GOOD QUALITY paper bags like trader joe's have, for all the rest

More food for thought;

Australia has never used plastic bags and no one there died of contamination. I lived there 25 years ago & have used canvas bags ever since. Our country is backward compared to other countries in recycling and proper use of our resources. I wash my canvas bags occasionally, but not after every single use. Our society has become paranoid about germs. We all have germs. We actually need germs & bacteria.

This is a pet peeve of mine. I spoke to the manager at the Publix at Colony to suggest that those who wish to use their reusable bags should have dedicated checkout lines. Those who check out invariably slow the line by directing/instructing how their groceries are packed and the rest of us have to wait. While I'm at it, just got back from Disney. The use paper straws everywhere, served in plastic cups. Makes no sense. Furthermore, they control your A/C in the room you paid thousands to stay in. People, it's all about control.

I don't think I have read so much 'sky is falling' nonsence for a long time.
If this small TOTV site is a reflection of US society as a whole, over a piddling thing like shopping bags, God help you if something serious happens.
Come on!!

:coolsmiley: This morning I read a story online in the Albany, N.Y. newspaper about a local grocery store chain charging 5 cents for paper bags. The story had some info. that people may or may not find interesting. New York State has a statewide ban on plastic grocery bags that takes effect on March 1.

Price Chopper to start charging 5 cents for paper bags :ho:

While on the subject of plastic bags.
 

Why are we using clear plastic bags for recycling we should have recycle bins think of how many bags we use each week in the villages.

Plastic bags disappear, what do you use...
 

If you are using non-plastic bags at the grocery store, what are you using for the garbage can under the sink, in the bathrooms etc.? That is a second use of the stores cheap plastic bags which, of course, is not as many as the canvas bags. I'm curious as we are moving to McClure in April and was planning on shopping at Publix.

I buy tall kitchen can bags for kitchen garbage. If "they" come up with a biodegradable alternative of that size, I'll use it.


As for bathroom waste cans, we never have to throw anything in there that would make a mess. It's all dry goods. I've been using the same can liner and just adding the contents to the kitchen bag on trash day. Alternatively, I could use a cloth bag and wash it.

Some research
 

To legitimize the extra effort and energy consumption that producing tote bags requires, consumers need to use their reusable bags—a lot. One study out of the United Kingdom found that you’d have to reuse a cotton tote 327 times to achieve the same carbon-usage ratio as using a paper bag seven times, or plastic bag used twice. As strange as it sounds, plastic bags have the lightest per-use impact of the various bags the study examined. Cotton totes, on the other hand, in terms of production and distribution, actually have according to the Atlantic, “the highest and most severe global-warming potential by far.”

We donate to all the animal rescue organizations and over the years they have sent us about 5 cloth shopping bags, so we've been using them. Whenever the cashier picks them up, I'll tell them, use them however you want. All the ones we have look like this, pictures of animals on the outside and people always comment that they are a great looking bag.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/nZkAA...qLP/s-l300.jpg

It would be nice if the U.S. can be a model for other countries rather than sinking to the level of their selfish actions.

Stop & Shop charges for paper bags, so does Aldi's.

1. I have a recycling bin. Lake County will provide you with one if you live in Lake County, or you can buy one. We brought ours down from Connecticut and use that.
2. To prevent BUGS in the house - we wash our recyclables, but it's still safer to keep the stuff actually contained. So we re-use grocery bags. We also will contain stuff in whatever other plastic bags or cardboard boxes that end up in our house. We don't use fresh new bags for recycling, ever, and we definitely don't use clear bags. The trash guys will dump out the contents of the bin and put the bin back on the lawn. If the stuff in the bin is not contained in bags or boxes, it's harder for them to dump it and replace the bin.
3. I agree that every household should have at least one recycling bin. They're small, will hold only two grocery bags full of stuff at a time. So they don't take up a lot of room, and they're not unsightly and don't smell since everything that's in there is either never-dirtied or washed by the homeowner.

The issue at hand is biodegradability/landfill over use/trash in the ocean and on the land. A cloth bag will disintegrate IF and WHEN it gets discarded.

Or, you can make your own re-useable bag out of used plastic bags - or buy one from whatever crafter is making them at a craft fair:

Woven Plastic Bag Bag : 10 Steps (with Pictures) - Instructables

OK. I understand. Landfill is more important than Global Warming.

Do you have a link by any chance, backing up your 'memory'...of the UK study you reference?

I did find the UK study (I assume it's the same one you're talking about), but I can't find where it supports your statement(s) and since it's a 120 page PDF...I'm not going to even try to link it.

This link is a lot easier to read/understand, includes a summary of the UK study...and even has additional studies.

Reuse Bags (bag it here)

The topic is plastic trash.

:thumbup:


.

Most people have the decency to do what is right.

Most people in their sixties and older are very law abiding and moral.

In The Villages we have an abundance of people who do the right thing by almost anyone's standards.

Reusing and recycling (and saving money) were taught to senior citizens when they were children.

I think more and more people will carry bags to the grocery.