Using a carrier bag to line kitchen bin?

Fitzio

I use reusable carrier bags when I go to supermarkets for weekly shops, but if I have to nip into local Tesco Express or Spar type shops for any top ups, I usually take a carrier bag from them. If I have spare bags lying around, I always take them to the carrier bag bins (so that Bronnie & Co can make use of them!). x

Pretani

Plastic carrier bags are handy. There's no point in punishing yourself by using alternative options when its the damn bag manufacturers who's at fault. If they would only manufacture recyclable plastic bags the problem would be sorted.

Ben84

Pretani wrote: »

Plastic carrier bags are handy. There's no point in punishing yourself by using alternative options when its the damn bag manufacturers who's at fault. If they would only manufacture recyclable plastic bags the problem would be sorted.

If anything you're punishing yourself with those flimsy disposable bags that rip, stretch out and bite in to your fingers and often spill their contents when put down for a moment. My flat bottom reusable bags don't fall over, things never poke out the sides or fall through the bottom, and the thick fabric handles never stretch and hurt my hands.

The problems with disposable bags aren't too apparent to anyone who goes shopping in a car, but if you're walking or taking the bus you'll find them badly suited to anything other than light items.

As for recyclable, even if we could turn bags back in to more bags this requires collection, processing and distribution. This means a lot of resources and energy just to recycle a low mass, low value polymer bag. The energy to do this is likely to exceed the energy value of the plastic bag.

Recycling still costs money and damages the environment, it's not as great as people often like to believe, even if it's better than dumping waste or burning it. Reuse is much better though. Why turn bags in to bags when you can just empty out the first bag and refill it again and again?

Dustykitten

Great thread.

The French hypermarket bags are great and last much longer (had mine 2 years).

My DS learnt in science that the power/plastic used to make the recycling bins we have negates the whole point of recycling and once the bins cracked etc they created even more waste - food for thought.

I wonder how many jobs would be lost if the plastic bag industry was to end? It seems to me a bit like the car industry. We were told to stop using our cars and then when people stopped buying them (I know it was for a different reason) the car industry fell apart so now they have schemes to get us to buy new cars.

Lotus-eater

Pretani wrote: »

Plastic carrier bags are handy. There's no point in punishing yourself by using alternative options when its the damn bag manufacturers who's at fault. If they would only manufacture recyclable plastic bags the problem would be sorted.

You are joking right?
It's the manufacturers fault for producing all the silly things we use but don't want. Yeeeesssssss, ok, we use them, but it's not our fault?
Have you stopped to think that if we didn't use them then the manufacturers wouldn't make them? No? Why not?
If we refused to use the plastic bags and boxes that the multinationals churn out, they would soon stop doing so, the fact we don't, has more to say about us, rather than them.

Fire_Fox

Ben84 wrote: »

If anything you're punishing yourself with those flimsy disposable bags that rip, stretch out and bite in to your fingers and often spill their contents when put down for a moment. My flat bottom reusable bags don't fall over, things never poke out the sides or fall through the bottom, and the thick fabric handles never stretch and hurt my hands.

The problems with disposable bags aren't too apparent to anyone who goes shopping in a car, but if you're walking or taking the bus you'll find them badly suited to anything other than light items.

That is exactly how I feel - I can't believe I wasted so many years with disposable bags splitting on the bus or falling over in the back of a taxi!!

choille

I keep carrier bags in my handbag & use collapsable plastic crates that I store in the boot. If I run out of space I ask for a cardboard box, but it is amazing how many stores now just slice them up & flatten them.
I can take pleasure in holding a queue up as I ask for them to check to make sure that there isn't a nice strong box somewhere in the store - they should keep some at the check outs - Morrissons usually does.

kennyboy66_2

Dustykitten wrote: »

My DS learnt in science that the power/plastic used to make the recycling bins we have negates the whole point of recycling and once the bins cracked etc they created even more waste - food for thought.

.

God help us if you son was really taught this.

Recycling isn't a perfect process, and there is energy required to make the bins and collect materials. However if you include all the energy required the numbers are roughly as follows;

Aluminum requires 95 percent less energy made from recycled cans than bauxite. Recycled plastic bottles use 75 percent less energy.
Newsprint uses about 45 percent less.
Glass comes in at the lowest, saving us about 20 percent of manufacturing energy.

This will obviously vary by location.

Further complication arrises from the fact that Aluminium processing from bauxite (which requires huge energy) is sometimes done where hydro electric power (relatively green) is available.

Pretani

I should have said in my initial post that if we only used biodegradable plastic bags which are produced from plants oils, we would provide a business for our farmers and there would be no need to change the way we use plastic bags.

I find plastic bags extremely handy when I use them for other jobs than bringing home the shopping. They serve so many different functions before they eventually go into the bin. I'd hate to see the standard plastic bag go out of production simply because there is a refusal to manufacture biodegradable plant based bags and an enviromental movement against throw-a-ways.

Ben84

kennyboy66 wrote: »

Further complication arrises from the fact that Aluminium processing from bauxite (which requires huge energy) is sometimes done where hydro electric power (relatively green) is available.

Hydroelectric doesn't always deserve its green image, some of the big scale plants have involved a lot of environmentally damaging construction work, flooding large areas of land, disrupting river flow and also large global warming emissions from the massive amounts of concrete (it's a very CO2 intensive material) used in construction, as well as large methane emissions from the organic matter now submerged in water. Hydroelectric dams might not have smoke stacks, but they can in some cases emit a lot of pollution per unit of energy delivered, and tend to disrupt the natural environment more, as well as consuming more land.

Anyway, that aside, another aspect of recycling aluminium is that the bauxite it's made from is often mined from areas that were once rainforest. The more alumnium we throw in landfills the more bauxite we need and then the more rainforest that has to be cut down to dig it out. The energy savings of alumnium recycling are worth mentioning as they're large, but reducing damage to the rainforest is a huge benefit of recycling it too.