Monday, February 16, 2004
Paper or plastic?
I don’t quite understand the idea behind the design of the plastic bags used mostly in grocery and department stores. Today, I bought some groceries using one of those plastic bins they sometimes have near the door for those of us who don’t need the truck size, wobbly-wheeled, shopping carts. Anyway, I had maybe 7 or 8 items and could carry it very easily. After checking out I had 4 plastic bags, none full of stuff.
These stupid bags have so many problems – other than floating across the landscape like so many small indestructible ghosts. First, you’d better not have anything with a sharp corner edge in your bag. It doesn’t matter how light or how small it is, that corner is going to puncture the bag and a tear will result. You can quite easily carry a couple of gallons of juice in the bag as long as their bottles. Put a half-pint cardboard container of milk in the bag, however, and one of those corners is going to rip your bag.
How often have you left a store after “double-bagging.” There are a lot of store that do that no matter what you buy. I’ve come out of some grocery stores with a jar of peanut butter in a double-bag. Besides, if you’ve got one of those sharp-edged bag killers in there, the second bag will tear just as fast as the first one. For those stores that seem to always double-bag, how about buying a stronger bag?
2fers: Plastic Bag Crochet and Sierra Club Plastic Bags
