Submitted by Eastcoastpal t3_znywwb in newjersey
Seven months has past since the enactment of the single use plastic ban. How many reusable bags do you own? How many of them do you use on a consistent basis?
I own six reusable bags, but only consistently use two of them. That is only because I primarily shop at bulk wholesale stores and the two I consistently use, can fit into my cross over body bag.
We get 5-10 new bags from SR home delivery every week, we just end up throwing them out. The irony is we used to re-use the plastic bags for cat litter etc.
Same here. We used the bags for the animals instead of buying ones from pet store. I have a huge pile of bags. Anytime I give the school or someone anything they get the bag. I do NOT want it back.
Why not just donate them? There are so many organizations that can use those bags.
Because where am I going to keep all these bags between donations? Let me know your favorite organization that could use these bags and I will make a monetary donation in your name.
Feels incredibly wasteful but there’s no option if you use something like Instacart. I get multiple a week and give them to a food pantry when they accumulate but seems incredibly wasteful. Wish we had been like NY and allowed paper bags still. I realize they’re not as eco friendly as reusable - but there a clearly still need for disposable bags in some settings.
My younger daughter works for a county agency and was collecting Christmas presents for economically disadvantaged families. She was able to use all of them to package the gifts.
Instacart is already a subscription service. I don’t see why they can’t setup a deposit/refund system for plastic crates. If you get consistent deliveries, next driver can collect the prior crates or something
You don't need a subscription to use Instacart.
As a person who works for Shipt (like Instacart) the stores don't have the storage room for them. And not every customer is honest enough to return things like crates. But it would be ideal. When I shop at Target for my customers, I ask if they prefer I not bag their items. I use mine to lug them stuff to their door and then unload.
In theory that sounds nice but what is the incentive for the driver to pick them up and what do they do with them?
I wish we had paper bags too. Recycled paper we can then recycle or compost seems better than these micro plastic bags.
I will make a note for deliveries (I have bags) but it is a waste of time and effort for the delivery workers so this seems to be a problem that has few solutions. I have a stack of bags to return to Target.
I have the same ten bags I've been using for the last fifteen years.
I hope you wash them lol
They aren't those shitty plastic ones so they go right in the washer just like everything else.
Long before the law was passed I bought a set of 5 that conveniently fold up to pocket size and are washable. I use 2 on my weekly shopping excursions but always keep a third in the car for unplanned trips. I also have several mesh bags that I use for fresh produce.
I have about a dozen, including a couple insulated bags.
I keep them in a box at the back of the car and take what I need. Usually that's 3 or 4 bags. They sit on the counter until I bring them back out to the car again.
Same here
I’ve got 6 reusable plus 3 insulated reusable bags. Honestly, I don’t mind it now. Grabbing reusable bags before I leave or placing them in my car right after bringing the groceries in, is a habit now. I do miss using the plastic bags for my little garbage cans but I’ll live.
I use the plastic bags in the produce section for garbage and kitty litter... It is thinner but it still works.
I have many dozens. Supposedly this has saved over a billion disposable bags from being trashed already, so my garage stash is fine. I use them for everything. I take my boots off in one of the big ones when I come home from hiking so I don’t get sugar sand all over the breezeway. They are good for organization and storage. I wear them as hats. I give them names. I am wearing Fred today. Say hi, Fred.
Hi Fred!
I almost exclusively use delivery because I’m a lazy POS, and when I do go in person I completely forget, so I have to buy more when I’m there or dump everything in my car and figure it out when I get home. Honestly, I’m the worst example of how this change has affected us. I do reuse the bags for everything you can imagine that’s not groceries, but I’m definitely not doing it right.
Plus, without my plastic shopping bags, I just end up using regular size trash bags for small trash cans, which is also wasteful and using more plastic than necessary because I don’t ever think of buying smaller ones. I’m the absolute worst at this 😂
Just put the bags in your trunk when you are done using them so you'll never forget
Which is why I’m the worst at this 😂
Yeah same, one day ill keep it consistent lol
You can buy 1000 count of the same size plastic bags the stores used to give. That’s what I do.
100 maybe more thanks to grocery pickup refusing to just put the loose items in my trunk. I think I’ll start selling them outside the grocery store for a quarter to undercut the grocery overlords 😂
Target refuses to use your own bags for pickup and packs in fresh reusable bags each time, so I’m currently drowning in about 200 reusable bags that no one wants
This trend of stores "giving away" reusable bags just like the single use plastic must end. A bunch of stores in my area are doing it.
Which stores are just giving them away? I've only seem ones that charge for them.
Several ShopRite stores around Bergen/Passaic area as well as Brothers Produce in Paterson... I'm sure that expense is passed on to shoppers and these stores are not giving away anything.
I have around 10-15. I prefer to keep the Target ones. I usually hoard them in the closet and take them all down at once. I do forget a lot and since I have toddler twins, it is not worth me running up the stairs to get bags. So sometimes it does increase. In the beginning, I had like 30 because I kept forgetting.
We bought a pack of 10 good quality, nice size bags before the ban not considering that we do a mix of delivery, pick up and in store shopping. Now we are swamped with the ones that Stop & Shop packs our groceries in which, I might add, they charge for per delivery.
The wastage when they pack for you is astounding. A whole bag for a tube of toothpaste or a bag of chips. In the beginning I asked if they would be recycling these bags and was told they could take them back for me but there would be no credit for them. Now they won't even take them back.
I started taking them to work to hand out or leaving them in our mailroom but I think everyone is in the same situation now so they just go into the trash which seems so wasteful. I keep a handful which get used for various tasks but I wish delivery and pickup would move to paper bags instead.
We try to keep about 6 in each car in case we go grocery shopping. That seems like a good amount for a cart at the grocery store. We used to get delivery and the store did take the prior bags back a few times. So I don’t think we have too many extras.
If we forget to put the bags back in the car and realize we don’t have any bags at the grocery store, I’ll just put the paid groceries back into the cart and then just dump them in the back of the car and put them in bags at home to bring them inside.
I have two main Trader Joe's insulated bags, three other insulated bags (one given as a gift by my kid's orthodontist.) I wish I had switched to them much earlier. I can easily carry everything from the grocery store in in one trip with these.
I have a bunch of random other bags, not insulated and whatnot. They're either stuffed in the insulated bags or sorted in the trunk. They're not as useful.
We have about 20. Amazing how there are no more disposable bags flying in the breeze and stuck in tree branches.
Nah, my wife pointed one out in a tree a few weeks ago.
900 and growing cause I always forget them.
I feel so insulted when I buy new bags to add to my pile of bags that I forgot at home
I live near the border and as a result I've been doing my grocery shopping in PA where evil plastic bags are legal
Boooo be an adult and put them in your car!!
Well aren’t you so righteous
That’s where I forget them in.
I have about 5, only need 2 but I always forget them and have to buy new ones, that’s really the only annoying part about it
ETA: I didn’t answer the question. I had reusable bags long before the ban and I keep 4/5 in each of my cars. I use them regularly. They fold up super small so I can put them in my pocket when I go shopping.
I donate all my reusable bags i receive from shoprite from home to the food banks/pantries. They are so appreciative of the donations.
If you feel you are drowning in reusable bags, post it to your town’s facebook page and see if a resident or volunteer wants them. You can also call the town’s department of aging or your local church and ask if they need the bags.
I have 5 bags, 2 which are used for groceries weekly. I've been using them since before the ban.
Using them regularly is extremely easy.
Been using re-useable bags for ~5 years, got 6 bag and 2 insulated ones. Empty them in the house, and place them back in the cars.
To produce each re usable bag has the environmental impact of producing 130 single use plastic bags. So if you're forgetful and have 30 re usable bags you've done the harm of 3,900 single use bags and counting. We've gotten upwards of 100 bags easily from ordering groceries online occasionally. So equivalent of 13,000 single use bags as far as environmental impact in a year.
Pick up and delivery services are doing more damage with reusables than people forgetting theirs in their car and having to grab one in store. I am all for reusable bags but there has to be a better solution than getting 10 new ones with every order.
I get delivery every other week and my stop and shop will take the bags back when I get the next delivery. I hope they reuse them and not just throwing them out
My car has become solely a transportation device for totes and re-useable bags
Each car has 2 bags, so 6
My husband keeps forgetting bags and buying more. We probably have 20 to 30 at the moment.
About 342, I lost the dog and I can't find my shoes anywhere. Send help please!
In the beginning I was constantly forgetting bags and ended up with probably 10. I ended up getting a decent quality plastic laundry basket that I leave in the trunk for groceries. Load groceries / target purchases back into my shopping cart after paying and load them into basket when I get to my car. Leave a few reusable bags in the basket just case everything does fit.
I have about four of the thick plastic kind that grocery stores sell in their check out lanes, and then about a dozen cloth totes in different sizes. They all get used pretty consistently.
Not as many as you’d think, as I routinely drop about 4-5 on the counter at Aldi for people who forgot their bags to use. We get them free with Walmart+ and Whole Foods delivery. Might as well some random folks out so they don’t have to try to juggle their stuff to the car.
I have about 15. Boyfriend keeps buying more because he forgets them in the car!
We have about a dozen. Really only use one.
It’s a stupid law, especially when most fresh items are packaged in PLASTIC…. Help me make this make sense.
Exactly and if u, used the regular plastic bags for other things, now I just buy plastic bags it’s not gonna stop me from buying them. We need less laws this is a stupid thing
Like 20, I use almost none of them.
We got a whole pile of the things, I feel we swapped one issue for another
I have groceries delivered to my home. i get about 5-8 new reusable bags a week.
We have at least 20 reusable bags. We use 5‼️
Have a whole box or two of plastic bags from the stores they just gave me out a day before. Doing fine!
I have the same exact amount I had before the ban, which is 7. I use three of them for groceries and two of them for laundry.
i can’t speak for myself, but my mother bought a case of single use grocery bags she uses as garbage bags since it is just her she doesn’t want to use large hefty kitchen bags. she also takes them to the supermarket to get 2 uses out of them. defeats the purpose? i have no idea?
That’s what we do too
I have a dozen at the moment. I keep 3 of those white ShopRite ones in each of our cars. I also have 3 of those big blue ikea bags that I’ve had for years and use for Costco runs or whatever else. The last 3 are tote bag size and are used quite often as well. I don’t mind it but I use to reuse the plastic shopping bags as little trash bags for these small trash bins I have but now I have to buy small trash bags and I’ve yet to find ones that are decent quality.
I have them in my vehicle and forget to take them 90% of the time… last count was 23. On the other hand, we always used and recycled the single use bags. They were easily double and triple use for us.
I have quite a few, I’ve been trying to not use plastic bags before the ban. Some of my bags I’ve had for almost a decade
I have 3 reusable bags and use 2 of them all the time. I've had no trouble bringing them into any stores, but I only grocery shop.
I've had no trouble with straws dissolving early.
I've got a few. But I picked up a trunk grocery organizer at Sam's and I usually don't bother with bags. Just put the groceries in the cart, pay, then put them in the organizer. Best part, I can grab the whole organizer and bring everything in in one trip.
DONATE THEM to your local food pantry!! We have two BagPodz that have ten bags in each and they are really convenient to keep in the car. We got them before the pandemic. We do grocery pickup most of the time now and end up with about 5-10 reusable bags from the store every week. Once a month we drop them off at the local food pantry. They need them since they do not get plastic bags anymore. We bought small garbage bags for our small trashcans that we use now. They are cheap and honestly look nicer anyway.
We have about 8500 of them.
Bergen has been doing it for a year or two longer.
I must have about 50 of them. Someone forgets to put them back in the car, or puts the ones from one car back into the other car, only for me to discover i have none once i'm at the store. Or we randomly decide to buy a few things when we weren't expecting to and don't feel like hiking back to the car for a bag. Also for some reason our local chinese place was putting orders in them for a while, so i have a bunch of those.
The law should allow for paper\plastic with a nominal charge, maybe like a quarter each or something. Enough to strongly encourage their use, but where you don't end up buying yet another reusable if you find yourself in a pinch.
Its also somewhat self defeating, because now we just buy little plastic bags for the various trash cans around the house anyway, which we previously reused the plastic store bags for.
We have somewhere around 18. We try to equally split them up between the cars so we always have some no matter where we are.
They need to make a change for the home delivery services. Getting ~ 5 from instacart once a month is just wasteful. Not surprised the government, screwed this up.
I wonder if any food pantries could use them to pack donations? That might be a good way of recycling them for those that get groceries delivered.
I probably have 10 or 15 reusable bags. I consistently use 5 or 6 of them. I still being home plastic produce bags to use in my bathroom wastebaskets and stuff. I do think allowing paper bags has merits. I found myself bringing plastic shopping bags home with me from a recent trip out of state lol.
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Even before the ban, I had two big reusable bags from shoprite. They're probably about five years old now and have held up well. Within the last year I got a reusable cooler bag from shoprite that they were selling.
I liked them because it limited me to a fixed amount of stuff I could carry. No filling a cart with crap I don't need, things that would spoil because I bought too much, waste in general, just sticking to the basics and being able to walk out with the bags I carried in. Don't miss the plastic at all. All the bags live in my trunk so I never forget them.
I do miss the hand carts at the front door. I haven't seen one in ages. Anyone that took them is an asshole.
I have probably 30 because neither of us can remember to take them with us. Or I put them in the trunk and forget.
Also, whenever I go away and run into a grocery store or drug store and they have the plastic bags, I use as many as possible and bring them back home!
I have a dozen or so that I use every time I go shopping. I started using reusable bags when the plastic bag ban was announced but before it went into effect so I could get used to it. It’s like second nature to me now.
Too many to count. Probably 26-30. I had a lot of canvas bags before the ban and I’ve added a bunch of reusable store bags (seasonal designs) to the load.
I use 2-3 everyday as I work at ShopRite and I’m always adding sale items to my dinner.
There are about 30 in my garage and yet none in my car when I need them. When I go to ShopRite I end up throwing all of my groceries in the back of my suv haphazardly. One time I found a package of blueberries back there from god-knows-when.
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And Depends on how much I get at the grocery stores (Save-A-Lot, Grocery Outlet, Foleys & Shop Rite) I use at least 6-8
5000 use 2
I keep 2 Target reusable bags in my car but I never use them. Now I just take things from the cart and put them right in the car.
I do buy disposable garbage liners on Amazon now though. And I discovered so many more uses for them. So much for getting rid of plastic.
I probably have about 10 that I started using before the ban. I keep them in my car so I have them with Mr when I go grocery shopping.
Passed*
I never bring my bags in I always end up just loading at my car its far easier. I also found that using boxes is far more convenient for carrying groceries in general. I have several bags that I use consistently, but ever since I realized using boxes from Amazon orders, liquor store runs, or BJs it's made my grocery shopping far more easier to carry to and from my car.
I think its working well. I wish people would remember to bring in their bags instead of constantly buying new ones. I agree about the delivery services needing a new plan, though. I have a bunch from Whole Foods and Fresh Direct (though the fresh direct bags are superior in every so I always use them).
Stores in my state use paper bags for pick up. Just reuse or recycle. We have about 7 or 8 reusable ones that I use every week.
Yes, I do. I'm saying that. there needs to be a better system for people to return the bags we get when we order groceries.
I probably have a dozen bags, mostly canvas ones. I use most of them because half the time I go to the store the other half are still sitting at home because I forgot to put them back in my car.
I have had no issue with the ban whatsoever. I keep a few bags in my trunk and have no problems. People complaining about the inconvenience are just unwilling to change anything.
Before the ban: I used my same 4-5 bags.
After the ban: I use my same bags and now have 500 Target bags from Pick Up orders and deliveries (deliveries from other stores too, these Target bags are heavily circulated lol)
I have approximately a million. (Ok maybe 25?) I had a set that I used regularly but every time I got groceries delivered they came in more reusable bags. I try to use them to put donation stuff in so I can donate items and the bag they are in.
I have about ten bags that I was using for about 15 years. In the summer I live on the Barnegat Bay and paddleboard daily from June -Late October. I used to pull at least 3 single-use bags out of the bay every day. Now, virtually none, except for the occasional ice bag and bait bags. I’m still pulling out water bottles and cans of White Claws. The difference was immediate, which is cool.
I actually buy plastic bags 1000 count. If you have animals you need plastic bags.
I have about 6 nice ones from Trader Joe’s I use for groceries. I keep them in the car so they are always ready for shopping. I got 5 flimsier bags that fold up in themselves and wash super easily. Those are for smaller stores and for recycling.
Honestly this hasn’t been a big deal. I don’t miss the piles of plastic bags under my sink— even though I used them for recycling, they multiplied on their own.
I’ve been using recycled bags for years but only in the supermarket so I was stocked to the gills when all stores were banned from it.
I have a stash in the car behind the drivers seat. Easy to remember. I have different size bags for different trips. A small one for a quick run to 7-11 and bigger sizes for all my other trips.
I have like a dozen and we use several at a time throughout the week. The bag ban hasn’t really impacted us
I probably have at least 20 and never paid a dine for any of them. 15 of them say our boro name on them. Our mayor basically dumped a whole box on our girl scout troop last spring in an effort to get rid of the.. haha! I have 2 favorites, but use 4 or 5 the most.
I've also had 2 fabric ones break on me and have questioned how to dispose of them and how much better for the environment that would be when all these cheap fabric-ish bags start falling apart.
I have, like, 30, plus all my cooler bags from when I was an Instacart shopper—doing a grocery pickup from Shoprite today, so I will probably be getting at least five more. 🤪
Mine are starting to pile up. I did target drive up recently and they gave me 3 reusable bags. They put 3 avocados I ordered in one bag alone. They really could have piled everything into one bag
Got a bunch of the free target ones before the law went into effect. 15 to 20. I haven't needed another since it's easy too rotate them between my cars.
Why in God's name, did they ban paper?
I easily have three or four dozen reusable bags.
I've about 10-15 bags but can't remember buying a single one
Thejerseyjon609 t1_j0k0tv6 wrote
My wife’s aunt gets home delivery from shoprite. I took about 50 reusable bags that were piling up in her house.