Plastic Bags, Week of Trash Prep

As I'm prepping for my Week of Trash, I'd like to bring up a topic that is being discussed over at Living Green in LA - Plastic Bags. Plastic grocery bags to be specific. Currently, I use grocery bags as my trash bags - all over the house. I've never been sure if this is a good thing or not. So now is the time to find out.

Sources tell me that my method of reusing is better than nothing...but is it the best? Sierra Club says that a bag must be used 11 times in order to make it all worthwhile. Through a series of links I found Rajiv's blog in India - dedicated to plastic bags. He also sells reuseable bags on his main site, similar to Reuseablebags.com. I wrote Rajiv an email with my question: Am I doing the right thing? His reply:

Reusing anything is a lot better than throwing it away after just one use. But trash bags as a concept are also very bad aren't they? Maybe using used cartons for trash is even better?

I live in India, where we don't bag our trash at all. It gets collected from the bin without a bag.

Hmm. Good point. The problem I foresee is the constant dirtying of my trash cans - laziness is the killer of all things good, isn't it? For residents with city/county pick-up, I have just checked the rules with Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami over the phone.  Miami-Dade says that a bag is not required if the garbage is in the can. The City of Miami told me it really should be bagged and then placed in the can.

But again, so many of us live in condos, where dumpsters rule all. Loose trash in dumpsters often seems okay, unless it is very full or located outside where the wind would seem more likely to blow the trash away.

Once again, I haven't reached a nice, solid conclusion. I feel that I am in need of a trash expert, and have no idea where to find one.

Related: San Francisco is close to approving a 17 cent fee per bag.

Update: I have notified via email the Solid Waste Departments (County & City) , as well as Publix, of this post. I hope they will be able to provide us with even more insight.

Technorati tag: Week of Trash

Comments

[Anna]

Yet another kindred spirit! Just posted on my Bring Your Own blog: http://byotalk.blogspot.com/
About the growing number of people I've been meeting through cyber world that share my plastics mania. From Jersey, to Antibes, France, to Nashville, TN....and now you. Crazy synergy, as I'd just been looking at my trash, noting for the umpteenth time that after recycling, composting, reusing what I can, trash invariably ends up 99$ plastic/packaging. Love your trash inventory project, have thought of doing something similar, but maybe I'll just direct people to yours....if you don't mind, I'll post about it?

Seems to me theres gotta be some way to join forces. Will keep ruminating on that one. Meantime, were all doing good work in our respective communities, nice to know we are all in it together. Kudos to you, excellent site!
Best,
Anna

[Anna]

That was "99%" packaging, not dollars...would that it were worth that much!

[Coconut Grove Grapevine]

I keep begging them at Publix to fill the bags and stop putting one item in each bag and thinking that is a good thing. You buy 10 things and you have 9 or 10 bags, it is so stupid.

[Rebecca Carter]

I like the discussion started on this! Keep it going! Hopefully we'll get somewhere with it. Below is the response provided to me by Publix Super Markets:

Thank you for contacting Publix regarding our recycling practices.

We recycle plastic bags through our Return Centers. The bags are baled and shipped by the truckload to the recycler.

We do not track statistics on how many plastic bags are returned, nor do we track how many bags are purchased for use at the stores. The time and effort required to track quantities is too high. We depend on customers to bring back the bags voluntarily and place them in our recycling bins.

Most Publix stores have recycling bins placed near the front doors to collect the used plastic bags. If your store does not have the bins, ask the store manager about them.

We combine the plastic bags with other plastic wrap, including stretch wrap, so we cannot tell you how many bags are recycled.

We typically accept all types of plastic bags, including those from department stores, newspaper sleeve bags and clear dry-cleaner bags. Handles made from other plastics, paper or string must be removed as they are contaminants. Also, the bags must be clean and dry.

[jill danyelle]

I just wrote a blurb about this:
http://fiftyrx3.blogspot.com/2006/02/discussing-plastic-bags-on-leonard.html
as it was a discussion on my local npr station. I emailed tehm with precisely the same question. If I don't reuse the plastic grocery bag than what do I put my garbage in? Unfortunately they ran out of time, but I think someone was advocating plastic is better than paper in some ways. There should be a link to the podcast on the post. Anyway, I love it, I am analyzing my wardrobe and you are analyzing your garbage. I look forward to checking back in and reading your insights. BTW, please join the sustainable style carnival if you like!

[Rebecca Carter]

Jill, thanks for the link...Interesting podcast. I feel like they really didn't get anywhere, though, did you? I think they could have taken that time to talk about stuff that we haven't heard before, but anyway, I'm glad that it was at least being talked about.

At this point I don't think I would be a good candidate for your carnival, although I think it's a great idea. I haven't bought used clothes in years (reuse), if I could sew I would love to recycle clothes...and I still haven't bought my first piece of "sustainable" clothing (reduce). I think I'll get there, but I'm just not there yet. Being in New York, have you participated in a Swaporama Rama?

[ziggee]

We always keep canvas bags in the car so when we go shopping we can take them in and use them instead of plastic bags.

My dh insist we use plastic bags in our trash cans to put the garbage into our garbage cans outside. Me I would just like to forgo the plastic garbage bags all together and just dump the garbage in our garbage cans.

I do make the plastic bags go further by reusing the dog/cat food bags in our trashcans and then transfer them to the outside garbage can.

I also reuse a paperbag in one of our trashcans until it falls apart. I think I have gotten over 6 uses out of it in that particular room, I don't know how long it will last since I am still using it.

Zig