Do you get a daily paper and do they wrap it in a plastic bag? They do so around here and the bags make great kitty litter and dog poop bags. Otherwise, I agree--what to use for daily litter box scrapings??

They wrap the paper only when it rains, and I do use that. Also our outer milk bags make great kitty litter holders.

People still create trash of some sort. This is just a stupid idea.

I agree, Jasdip. It is something to placate the greenie weinies.

I agree. I reuse the plastic bags for garbage all the time. Frankly though, have you noticed that the bags you pay 5 cents for at places like Shoppers and Metro often rip before you even get them out of the store, while the bags we don't pay for, bags from Dollarama and Giant Tiger are far stronger. I think it is rediculous to ban the stores from giving out plastic bags completely. It is a decision that the Toronto City Council may just live to regret. I can see more garbage just tossed on the streets instead of neatly contained.

Here in Niagara, we can put our doggy poop and kitty litter in paper bags and put it in our green recycle bins. As long as you use the biodegradable doggy poop bags you can toss those in the green bins as well.

I can see our area following Toronto's example. So many of our city hall meetings have had hours of talk wasted on talk of banning the purchase of plastic bottles of water in city owned facilities like ball parks and arenas. They banned them over a year ago and yet this topic still gets brought up at a lot of meetings. Now I can see hours of debates on the bags.

I do recycle a lot, as anyone who drives by my house on garbage day will notice.

Our city banned plastic bags. We are supposed to pay 10 cents for a paper bag or bring our own. Next year it will go up to 25 cents.

I solved the problem by buying a couple of cases of plastic bags online. I keep a baggie full in my vehicle so I have a nice clean fresh bag for the times I run into a local grocery for a couple of items. I can stuff them in my back pocket. I don't carry huge purses like some women do and I like to travel light so no totes for me, especially those non-woven faux "green" bags made in China.

I do most all my shopping outside the city since I refuse to let them have my tax dollars after this crazy law was passed.

I have always reused my plastic bags for a number of things. I don't litter. Since the law has been in effect the lines at the stores are longer since the checkers have to deal with all sorts of caries. Some people elect to use nothing at all and just carry stuff in their arms out the door. I'm pretty sure the loss (theft) in the stores has gone up with so many people using all manner of bags from backpacks to giant purses.

Apparently other nearby towns have taken note despite our local paper touting what a "success" this has been. Many nearby towns were planning to follow suit but some are taking a wait and see attitude now. Probably because they see the increased revenue from shoppers like me who are willing to drive a couple extra miles for full service.

Litter is the same as ever. No real reduction that I can see on my walks. It's a feel good law that has no scientific merit. Money would be better spent enforcing existing littering laws.

And it's pretty ridiculous, anyway, Since plastic bags are now made differently and DO self-destruct after a while. Have you kept any? After a bit, they turn into tiny plastic flakes. So they're no longer the problem to the environment that they once were. They've been redesigned. Shame the order doesn't require the use of the degradable bags, rather than banning them completely.

I'm the "greenie weenie" here and heartily disagree with all of you. It's NOT a "feel good law." It's a worthwhile reduction of waste law. There are still plenty of plastic bags given out at pharmacies and other stores.

Kitty litter can be placed in brown lunch-style bags or any other small paper bags which come your way. Or even wrap in newspaper, tape shut with masking tape. It's what I do, and the bag is strong enough to hold a couple days' worth.

I also think that all the plastic water bottles and Keurig coffee cups are a shame. No one died of dehydration before we had those horrible water bottles.

Even if plastic bags break down, they are still present in tiny particles. They can break down in the ocean too, but just because the particles are small doesn't mean they aren't there.

Most importantly: Let's think about our grandkids and their kids and the mess we are creating for them. That's what motivates me to try to reduce the flow of trash to the landfill, my dear grandchildren.

Susan

Another greenie weinie here too, Susan. We carry cloth bags to the store. I was shopping last week and the clerk put every single thing in a separate plastic bag when I wasn't watching. I stopped for five things, and forgot my cloth bag.

The more-or-less-high-end grocery stores around here haven't been putting the cases and trays that the products come in out by the check-outs, but the low-price ones, which are the ones where I usually shop, have, for some years.

I use some of them to carry out the few groceries that I buy, then re-use some of them for mail, etc. I like the trays that bring the produce, as I can put several small items or boxes, including large sheets of paper in them, then stack them, if I choose. I use them for garden seeds, tools, etc.

One of the low-cost grocery stores recently remodelled and stopped putting the cartons out front ... so I've been considering carrying a tray (from another store, of course) into that store with me and use it, sometimes along with the cart, as I shop, arranging to maneuver near some of their staff as I do do, of course.

As for picking up after canines ... I've suggested to some local coffee shops where they give out coffee in many coated paper cups, with recyclable plastic lids, that they make a great container to pick up after (fairly small) dogs ... as the lid makes a good scooper (carefully used) ... then makes a good cover to contain the material.

No shi!!

The coffee shops - every one of them, so far - seem singularly uninterested in my advice.

They say that when the plastic material from the bags breaks down into tiny pieces in the ocean, that a number of fish and other sea creatures, many of which we like to eat, often eat them, and they accumulate in their stomachs, causing problems, including terminal ones.

As for material that adds substantially to the burden in landfills ...

... how about disposable diapers?

Do you consider that they may add as much or more to the landfills as do the plastic bags?

Here's a solution: don't have kids.

Oh, right ... we've been doing that for a generation or so, in the light of raising kids being so constly ...

... and now we are short of the workforce needed to cover the government debts that we've run up, pay our pensions, etc.

(What goes around ...

... comes around)?

ole joyful

Plastic bags have been banned on Maui for over a year. Those 'flakes' end up in landfill and in the ocean, where fish ingest them.

I have six totes. Two have insulation and zip-lids. It's no big deal to take them into a store with me. If I have more groceries than totes the store provides paper bags.

I still have the market basket my aunt used in England after WWII. That was 'one stop shopping'. One stop for each thing: The bakery, the greengrocer, the butcher, the chemist, the creamery, etc. (And lucky to find anything to buy!)

I still have the big market basket my grandmother took to market. She was a tall thin woman and I remember her walking down the street to the market a block away carrying this.

Excellent point Joyful. It's interesting how the diapers are never mentioned nor even the number of kids people have. Plastic bags and water bottles are the villains du jour these days and there's so many other things ignored. From disposable razors to prescription bottles (everyone has to have a new bottle to get their placebos these days!), cosmetics (is their any larger waste of packaging and resources than makeup?) peanut butter and jelly jars and on and on.

Certainly it's a feelgood law. If people were *truly* concerned about the environment they wouldn't be using most "modern conveniences" (including but not limited to the cell phones, computers, and whatever else they use to post!), or make their money in the way many do, but the only ones I ever see who actually take those steps are usually branded nutcases, terrorists and weirdos.

I consider myself pragmatic. Humans do not exist without some environmental impact. I lessen my footprint and watch as others talk the talk Peggy Hill-esque about "it's for the freakin children!", then get into their SUV, drive to the "fitness center" so they can walk, while they buy their $12 latte at the drive-up leaving the motor running the entire time, and go in and walk at the gym. Apparently they don't want to breathe the air outside. And with all the perfumes, colognes, scented soaps and detergents used on everything, who can blame them?

I wonder why there ISN'T a similar interest in doing away with disposable diapers??? Could it be the companies that make them are too influential? Hmmmm....

My wife makes her shopping bags from old tank top shirts, some she puts fancy decorations on. She said to turn the shirt inside out and run a double stitch across the bottom. The shoulder straps are the handles. She has been using them for about four years now. Washes them with the regular laundry load.

Jas you are so right!!

june

grand idea Nod! thank you for sharing

What a great idea, Nod!

I also reuse the plastic bags - for doggie dodo pickup on our walks. With four dogs, it takes a good sized bag.

If grocery stores hand out paper bags, instead of plastic, isn't that also an environmental issue? They cut a lot of trees to make all that paper. A truly biodegradable plastic type bag would seem to be the answer. Aren't some made of a talcom powder product (which is made from corn, I believe) that composts easily?

we were confined to those green boxes for recycle, but now thank goodness, are getting larger ones...it's about time...

fil said in tinytown il, they had to discontinue them as people were mis-using them...

Well, not all of it ends up in the landfills... just google 'plastic trash in Pacific Oceans'.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plastic Dump in Pacific Ocean

It is just the grocery bags they are banning isn't it? I buy a box of cheap waste paper basket bags for cat litter and I use the newspaper bags my sister in law gives me to pick up after Loki outside. I rarely ever use plastic bags from the grocery store and you would be hard pressed to find one if you look where I keep my bags. Even when I go to the mall I rarely will take a plastic bag from a vendor for my purchases. I have fancy tote bags for other than grocery shopping and the vinyl bags and insulated cold/warm bags for my groceries.

Anne

Yes, Anne. Just the grocery bags, being banned.
My concern is that they ban those, which are thin, and we'll be buying the Glad type bags, which are much heavier and won't break down, either.