[jgl]

I've been wondering this for a while and am only now getting around to asking. What's the deal with plastic bags and supermarkets?

There is pressure all over the world to get supermarkets to stop giving out plastic bags for environmental reasons. However, I and pretty much everyone I know, use these plastic bags as bin liners. When I run out of plastic bags, I resort to the roll of bin liners kept at home.

If supermarkets didn't give out plastic bags, then people would use bin liners all the time, which would have exactly the same environmental impact.

So what's with the pressure to abolish plastic bags?

Is it because:

• They use a different kind of plastic?
• The ban is aimed at bags that are of odd, un-reusable sizes?
• Most plastic bags really are only used once and then dumped?

These are the reasons I can think of, but none of them seem that plausible to me and I would appreciate enlightenment. Or at least entertainment

Edit: I didn't realise that geoexpat used such fancy bullet points. Huh.

[BenderLives]

because while you and your immediate group re-use the shopping bags, most people do not.

a lot of people dont have trash bins small enough for those bags anyways, so there is a lot more of those bags being wasted and not used to thier full potential.

[PDLM]

Yes - if I'm going from home I always take reuseable shopping bags, but even the number of carriers I get from stuff I pick up at other times is way more than I can reuse (even when I do my best to minimize the number they give me). My bin is much bigger than a carrier bag.

[jgl]

I would have assumed that my sample size is reasonably representative... family, extended family, any friends' kitchen I've been in. Just about every one of my friends in the UK (save for one flatmate that used a really big bin, but he used plastic bags for the smaller bins) and Australia.

Okay, I realise that the common denominator here is me... so do all you guys and girls out there really *not* re-use plastic bags to line your bins?

[MovingIn07]

We do! In fact my husband has banned me from buying a cloth bag on the basis that we only just have enough bags from the supermarket for our kitchen bin (which is tiny and so fills daily) and he does not want to spend money on bin liners. (No environmental concern, sorry, just pure finance!)

[BenderLives]

we do not reuse for the bin...but only due to size.
but we do re-use these bags for other uses, such as bags to carry clothing donations, lunch bags, and other misc stuff

[Claire ex-ax]

In our household, we use reuseable bags so we don't get the ones from the supermarkets. This means, of course, we have to buy bin liners but they are the biodegradable ones.

[Sleuth]

For the most part we use the reuseable bags for shopping. But we always end up with some small, plastic bags which we then use as bin liners.
I would be in favor of a total ban, though. Just read the article about how many million barrels of oil China uses to produce those things. Let's save the oil for something more useful. (And no, "more useful", to me, isn't driving all over America even though I am an American.)

[mumto2]

Mmm, I use reusable cloth bags from the supermarket in Australia to do the groceries but it doesn't really matter, I always seem to end up with plastic bags as well, from other stores or I've forgotten a enviro-bag or something but I use them for lining the bathroom bin or (currently) for putting all the recyclable plastic in...

as a side, sorry jgl, is there no mandatory recycling done in HK?

[mootje]

The plastic bags are poor quality, they tear very easily. I never re-use them. I always bring my own bag. In the three sixty and wellcome they always ask me if I want a bag and I always say no. They even ask me if I have only one item! But...they always give me!After 4 times telling the staff I don't want a bag they say ok-la and give me a bag for meat (they don't call that a bag!!??!!) In my homecountry we bring always your own bag and we always bag our own groceries. That saves lots of time, it takes ages for the staff bag the groceries. They adjust at least 5 times the groceries. AHHHH