Spill the beans... on uses for old plastic carrier bags

Mantha21

alfacat wrote: »

You have to look at both ends of a bag's lifecycle. One plastic 'bag for life' takes as much energy as 28 single use ones to make. A canvas bag would need to be used at least 131 times to offset the carbon footprint of making it.

Following up on this, I do reuse my jute bags to the point that one of them started to fall to pieces, I went to the Sainsbury customer service (it was one of the origial 'SO' Sainsbury Organic ones) desk to ask for a replacement (in the same way as the plastic bags for life) to be told "no, you have to buy a replacement"!!!

I have been meaning to contact Sainsbury on this issue, but as yet haven't, although it may be a cause that MSE could take on for me, as it seems crackers that they won't replace them!!

Sainsburys have never marketed those as 'bags for life', so why should they replace them for free? They are 're-usable bags' and if you've reused it to the point that it is no longer usable as a bag, then it should be put to another use. I think you got you're money's worth.
I used to work in a supermarket and IMO they shouldn't replace any bags for free; it just encourages ppl to get rid of them, just like a 'single-use' carrier bag. The amount of times I had to replace bags for life because they had a little nick in the plastic, or they'd got creased and faded. They were still perfectly usable, but because they were to free to replace, they just asked for new ones. Additionally they don't take care about them, just stuffing them to capacity then complaining when the handles break. This has got to be worse than these ppl taking traditional carrier bags. If, as another poster stated, they use considerable more carbon to produce and are bigger and thicker, so presumably more plastic aswell; then using these bags once or twice then asking for a replacement will be more damaging than using more normal ones.


As for the original discussion, in my house we take normal carrier bags when shopping, but only about every 3 or 4 months. We reuse these until they are falling apart then recycle them. We're lucky that our local recycling collection accepts carrier bags.....and pretty much everything else lol so we only have 1 bin bag every few weeks (with a family of 6 =p)
But they also get used all around the house, there is nothing more useful if you've got a load of books to take to a friends, or a pair of muddy shoes to go in the car. If we didn't use carrier bags for these, then we'd just be using expensive, yet probably still plastic, bags we had to buy.
I don't think plastic bags should be charged for or if so, they should go back to the 'paper or plastic' days of old.

JulieGeorgiana

I re-use some, but the majority we use as bin bags as it means we take the bin out more often, cutting down on the smell and the likelyhood of leaks and things getting disgusting :S

kittiej

Is degradable the same as biodegradable?

Bundance in answer to your question no degradable is not the same as biodegradable.

Degradable bags contain something called 'brittling agents' which help the physical bag break down into the confetti type stuff as mentioned by another poster however this still leaves the plastic bits in tact. These brittling agents are poisonous to our water systems as they can contain things like lead.

Biodegradable bags are I think based around starches and are quite expensive to produce so retailers don't want to go down that route unless they specialise in green products.

HTH

klint

fortunefortune wrote: »

Please stop using plastic bags.

So how do you collect your rubbish?

I know a lot of people spend money on plastic bin liners when they can use free plastic carrier bags instead. That's a waste of money. But since you are environment-friendly, I'm just wondering what rubbish disposal scheme you have that doesn't use plastic bags at all.

bundance

kittiej wrote: »

Is degradable the same as biodegradable?

Bundance in answer to your question no degradable is not the same as biodegradable.

Degradable bags contain something called 'brittling agents' which help the physical bag break down into the confetti type stuff as mentioned by another poster however this still leaves the plastic bits in tact. These brittling agents are poisonous to our water systems as they can contain things like lead.

Biodegradable bags are I think based around starches and are quite expensive to produce so retailers don't want to go down that route unless they specialise in green products.

HTH

Thanks for this.

I have a question please?

As degradable bags are still harmful to the environment, and wildlife, what is the point of them?

bundance

klint wrote: »

So how do you collect your rubbish?

I know a lot of people spend money on plastic bin liners when they can use free plastic carrier bags instead. That's a waste of money. But since you are environment-friendly, I'm just wondering what rubbish disposal scheme you have that doesn't use plastic bags at all.

I wondered the same.
I came up with these.
If you have a garden you can compost.
If you have a dog or a goat they will eat any scraps as well as their own food.
Recycle all plastics, cardboard and glass.
That leaves the sloppy and disgusting rubbish.
We could put this in newspaper but what if we don't buy newspapers?

Unless I am missing something, without carrier bags, or \ny form of plastic bags we will have a sloppy smelly mess and a disgusting smelly bin.

I don't condone plastic bags, I just cannot see an alternative and I resent being put in a position where I am forced to use a product that is ultimately destroying the earth and the food chain, including human food, as we eat the fish that has been poisoned by this plastic.

apprentice_tycoon

I shop in Wales and the change in mindset about the use of carrier bags is tangible. Last Christmas I bought a large book as a gift from WHSmiths and I wasn't asked if I wanted to buy a 5p bag, I was just handed the book over the counter, I wasn't happy about carrying a gift book home just in my hand so I asked to buy the carrier. Lesson learned.

Since then I always carry a couple of really light foldup reusable bags in my handbag for general shopping and my groceries are always taken home in the woven plastic bags that seemingly last forever.

This isn't just about saving 5p on the cost of the bags, it's about realising that I don't need to have them at all. I'm not a diehard environmentalist but it just seems right that we don't use carrier bags any longer for day to day shopping.

I wish that the rest of the UK would follow suit to discourage the use of carrier bags, it really isn't a hardship.

Hevvur

I have a small village pet shop, and all our customers bring their plastic bags back for us to re-use.
A lot use trollies or material bags, but some people still insist on using plastic bags.

If I ever do get a plastic bag (unexpcted shopping whilst out), I either use them to line my small bins in living room, or bring them to my shop to re-use.

joehoover wrote: »

Of course you want to save on bin liners but look at recycling more. My bin is only used for cat litter as I haven't found an alternative to get rid of that yet.

I use a flushable, bio degradable cat litter

historygirl_2

Double them up. Punch holes in the bottom. Fill with compost and grow stuff. This year I have done potatoes, lettuce, strawberries (these need hanging up to protect from slugs) and cherry tomatoes (also hanging). In addition having been exposed to uv light outside many bags go 'crumbly' and disintegrate therefore not taking up landfill space.

kittiej

QUOTE]As degradable bags are still harmful to the environment, and wildlife, what is the point of them?[/QUOTE]

@ Bundance

I think retailers were looking for an end of pipe solution to the issue of carrier bags taking up so much space at landfill sites hence the idea of the bags breaking down into smaller pieces. The thing is the bags need light as part of the breaking down process and being buried at the bottom of a heap of rubbish hasn't enabled this to happen so it's sort of back fired *rolls eyes*

HTH a bit.