March 27, 2006

• Oh and some Oz Ideas on plastic bags. Forgot that one.
• Canvas!
• I have a huge canvas shopping bag I use when I can. My kitties love the plastic ones and tend to get their heads stuck in the handles. Then they run, and they hear the crinkling bag behind them, think they're being chased and run faster, nearly choking themselves.
• My wife has stuffed homemade curtain top thingamabobs with them and, since the cloth itself was lined with (cottony looking stuff), the noise is much reduced. Plus, who squeezes the curtain tops? No one, that's who.
• Lara: My cat did that and grazed his head running under a chair. Funny to watch, though.
• The first thing I do when visiting someone's home is squeeze the curtain tops.
• Loudly.
• Great topic, pestbeat! I use cloth bags myself. *pats self on back in oh-so-smug manner*
• I should use cloth bags. Maybe reading this stuff will give me some much-needed motivation. Thanks for the links, petebest!
• Great idea Fes. Y'know I have a pile of plastic bags in the trunk of my car for re-use. I notice them every time I open the trunk to put the new groceries in. Then I curse just a bit. I also have canvas bags that I keep meaning to use. Somewhere. Anyway - today I resolve to redouble my canvas bagging efforts! Anyone know about the blanket I mentioned? I'd love to see that link again.
• well, I didn't find it, but I did discover a prison love companion out of a plastic bag. (NSFW based on content, not imagery) hm.
• Paper bags are long-gone in my area. Except for a couple mom & pop stores, and Kwong Chow, my cheapie Chinese place ("Call the Kwong number!"). Our family went with paper as long as they could, our household indirectly being supported by the paper industry. But we do use cloth as often as we can.
• pete- you can see the blanket via the Wayback Machine, but it's very slow.
• I use my gihongous leather handbag for grocery transport, but I have to admit that I usually end up with at least one plastic bag as well, especially if I'm buying something bulky like toilet paper. I do try to reuse plastic bags as household bin liners and occasional wet-weather headgear.
• Giraffe eating plastic bag.
• Sleeping bag lady. No, sleeping-bag lady.
• Thanks fish tick! Those are perfect!
• Easterday, who lives in a remote area of the Santa Cruz Mountains, says she wouldn't throw the bags out because she knew they would just end up sitting in a landfill for 50 years. She wouldn't recycle the bags, either, because she found out that they were being shipped overseas rather than being reused. "The cost of labor's too high to reuse plastic bags. You have to go through them and look for hazardous wastes, because there could be a lot of things in there. So they get shipped to China. Most people think they get recycled," she says. "Every American uses about 190 pounds of plastic per year, 60 of which is plastic packaging, so it's cheaper to just make new bags out of petroleum products." I . . . didn't know that. hoisted by my own FPPetard.
• The upholstery in several pieces of furniture in our house is constructed with fiberfill made from recycled plastic bottles; most of these have cotton covers that can be unzipped and washed in the washing machine. Also have a number of cushions, pillows, and futons similarly made. We prefer to buy green. When paper bags aren't available, we try to use sprang bags for shopping -- these will stretch to carry bulk, and can be used indefinitely. Also use collapsible recycled plastic crates to haul produce and the like. Much of the time we just load unbagged purchases directly into the vehicle. Despite such measures, plastic is ubiquitous and some always manages to come home with us. We store and recycle bags, but there's not a local recycler accepts all varieties of plastic containers/meat trays/styrofoam, plastic wrap, etc. And it adds up. So we try not to buy anything so packaged. We compost anything compostable, including paper and cardboard -- all our horse poo makes for a huge hot pile! We also recycle stacks of newspaper and unwanted plain paper bags from the neighbours and use these to line the parrots' cages -- and for the old dachshund and any puppies we end up fostering. And when we planta garden we often place paper and cardboard under less unsightly mulch (No no no! Don't make me visit beeswacky's House of Squalor, mommy!)
• Grrr -- it swallowed my link! sprang
• Would you like a bag to carry your groceries? 'Cause my mother-in-law... Oh, nevermind...
• I have a bunch of canvas shopping bags, but I always forget to take them with me when I buy groceries. Which reminds me that today is grocery day, so today I will take them. Fes, you have to explain that one better. We need noise-reduction in our bedroom (barking dog next door owned by regular late-night partiers) and I'd be willing to give it a try. More bags made of bags -- crocheted, of course.
• Tracicle: my wife makes a lot of the curtains for our house, and several have these sorts of topper things (she calls them "valances," not sure if that's the actual word for what those things are, though) that are, you know, puffy. rarther than stuff them with cotton batting (expensive?), she has used wads of those plastic bags - they poof out just as nicely, and like I say, with the exception of those two maleficients koko and fish tick, no one ever squeezes them so you never hear any crunchiness. As for sound deadening, I don't know. We live in a fairly secluded cul-de-sac, so it's pretty quiet generally, except for the effing screech owl in the woods out back, which you can hear PERFECTLY and comes through the baby monitor sounding like my two-year-old is busily summoning a demon. I like owls, and I'm glad they're back there, but I wish they'd shut the hell up once in a while. Chattiest friggin nightbirds in the whole damn neighborhood.
• Paper or plastic? Kill a tree or choke a turtle? I'd rather kill a tree. Paper is environmentally more friendly. Besides, there are many ways to make paper that don't kill trees: Hemp for example makes great fibers, and hemp paper isn't a bad idea at all. Paper is also easy to recycle, and will turn back into carbon on its own after a while. Late last year I got fed up with plastic. I started using waxed paper bags to store my lunch sandwiches instead of using Ziplocs. If the damn things would decompose I wouldn't mind them, but .... Our dependence on plastic is really unfortunate. You can't avoid it, as hard as you might try. Everything comes in plastic, and plastic is designed to last forever. It's sad. I really wish recycling was mandatory, not optional. On the other hand, recycling is only as good as the program suporting it. My local city recycling program claims they take #1 PETE and #2 HDLP for recycling, but half the #2 containers I toss in the bin are returned to me - "Oh, when we said we take #1 PETE that really means we accept #1 PETE bottles, and nothing else, even if it is plainly marked as #1 PETE." For cripes sake I can't even get them to admit that glass comes in different colors. They take clear, claim to take green, and randomly do or do not accept the green glass wine bottles, with no discernable pattern whatsoever. More info on plastics and plastic recycling.
• Fes wrote: "I like owls, and I'm glad they're back there, but I wish they'd shut the hell up once in a while." Invite bernockle over for the afternoon. Owl problem solved.
• my wife makes a lot of the curtains for our house, and several have these sorts of topper things (she calls them "valances," not sure if that's the actual word for what those things are, though) that are, you know, puffy. rarther than stuff them with cotton batting (expensive?), she has used wads of those plastic bags... I used to work in the bed & bath section of a department store, and the official name for those thinies is "pouf valance." And we used to stuff out our display models with plastic bags; they held their shape a lot longer than tissue paper.
• I'm not going to pick up dog shit with a paper or canvas bag, tyvm.
• Thanks for the link Monkeybashi (and for the sprang news bees, once again I learnded something)! Between the "bags from bags" link and the archived bagbed link, I might be able to figure it out . . . Although if I even so much as suspect that there's math invovled, the whole deal's off . . .
• I'm not going to pick up dog shit with a paper or canvas bag, tyvm. But the plastic ones don't burn as nicely on a doorstep.
• There is a big kick from the major Australian supermarkets at the moment to get people off plastic bags. Of course they are doing this by selling reusable bags made from polypropylene. Ah, here is their official site. I just threw one on the scales, and it weighed 108g compared to 8g for a standard bag. So you need to use them 14 times before you've saved any plastic. Wouldn't cloth bags have been better?
• Yes. I wonder if it's better than nothing though?
• I got in trouble for choking a turtle a bit ago. It didn’t involve a bag... ...not sure where to go with that. Shoping in the local supermarket out here it seems they think you’re stealing when you bring your own bag in. My wife and I tend to buy in bulk and although I can carry about 30 two liters bottles in either hand, I’d rather avoid the plastic narrowing and slicing it’s way through my fingers. Trader Joes nearby has cloth bags. Do some stores think people will take them home or something and not return them?
• After I go around the neighborhood squeezing peoples' curtain tops, I like to crouch outside Fes' 2-year-old's window and screech like an owl. Then I float a plastic bag outside his window so he thinks it's a ghost and he's all, "daddy, daddy a ghost" and Fes is all "turn off the tv and go to bed or you're grounded!" and his wife's all, "but honey he's only 2" and Fes is all, "can't I get any goddamn SLEEP around here?!" What a jerk.
• *satori* *fetches shotgun*
• Okay, the pouf valance may not be for me, but that is pretty cool. And ecologically nice!
• Perhaps stores should be legislated to charge for paper and plastic bags, giving their customers incentive to (re)use their own bags. Some discount supermarkets where the customer does the packing already do this.
• I don't know that a great case can be made for paper being the more environmental choice - it seems to me that both paper and plastic are bad in their own way. The paper industry is supposedly one of the worst polluters... however, I don't have the numbers on paper vs plastic. We reuse anything we get, though: paper bags are used to store the recycling in the house until it gets taken out (when it gets taken away and recycled). Our town basically has a system to force recycling: recycling is free, but trash collection, rather than being billed, costs several dollars per bag. You buy stickers (several dollars each) at a grocery store, then you put one on each bag you want to throw away. My mom's hilarious tendency, though, is to not bother to read the recycling numbers on packaging (many of which are printed too small for people with even remotely impaired eyesight to read). She just chucks ANYthing plastic into the recycling bins, figuring someone else will sort it out later, preferably someone who can see. Sometimes I go through and remove anything that isn't 1/2/5. I have heard that #6 plastic (not foam) is the same as "shrinky plastic" and can be baked and shrunken using the same directions (look 'em up). YMMV. Do not burn plastic in your oven just because I said to, without at least checking this elsewhere on the internets first!
• So the truth is the only canvas bags I've got that are suitable for shopping I got as a "thank you" gift for donating or some such. Where the good canvas bags at? Or should I just wing it? (Although I like the collapsible-crate idea bees has - just take it out of the buggy and into the trunk! Lovely. Um - where does one get those?)
• D'oh: as far as reuse - we reuse the paper bags as mentioned, but we also reuse the plastic bags. Mostly for small trash cans around the house, for carrying stuff outside the house (IE extra shoes to work), and for cleaning up after the pets. I don't use plastic bags for lunch, because I prefer to carry a lunch box and use reusable plastic containers in it.
• I make my environmental contributions elsewhere. As far as bags are concerned, I usually get the plastic ones, and throw them out when I get home. Why? Because it is a real hassle to deal with them. Sometimes I get paper bags at the grocery. Those I use to pack up the newspapers, catalogs, junk mail, printer paper, etc. All of this goes out to the curb on recycling day - Monday. When I see a plastic bag blow by I snag it and trash it.
• Since these are long-chain hydrocarbons (crosslinked), why hasn't anybody started cracking them to turn them into kerosene or some other lightweight hydrocarbon fuel?
• These folk sell collapsible plastic crates, pete.
• We use canvas bags when we shop. Man-purse! comes the cry, but I really couldn't care less. Despite our efforts, though, we still wind up with a collection of plastic bags from unplanned errands and the like. Solution: drop them off at a food bank or local independent thrift store, which ensures they get reused at least once. I also applaud some of the grocery stores here which have decided to sell bags and not give them away. People generally bring their own bags, and while we all know the motivation from the store is largely financial, it does help reduce the number of bags used and possibly (hopefully) encourages the odd person to think about waste.
• Interestingly, libraries may also benefit from plastic bags. Users sometimes find themselves burdened with books but no bags. So donate some plastic bags to your local library too!
• I bought The Complete Tightwad Gazette some time back and it has some stuff in it that I can't recall. One thing was reusing the plastic bags that you put your veges and fruit in, taking them back to the supermarket each time. But the book is more concerned with saving money than with saving the environment, strangely enough.
• Like many others, I've picked up the cloth bags and heavy-duty 're-use me!' bags from the supermarket. It's just a question of remembering to use them.
• mord, it's been done, apparently. i've got some heavy duty plastic bags that i've been reusing for several years. i try to carry either a cloth or strong plastic bag with me, just in case i shop.
• That looks good. Isn't that a bit like Thermal Depolymerization?
• Why? Because it is a real hassle to deal with them. *bip* Why? Because it is a real hassle to deal with them. *bip* Why? Because it is a real hassle to deal with them. *bip* Why? Because it is a real hassle to deal with them. **SKRRRIIIiieeeeeekkkkk** GAME OVER
• Thanks for the link, bees - I shall bee pleased to try it out.
• mord, it's been done, apparently. "through several experiments with a `secret catalyst' that prevented plastic from melting into a mass when heated, and instead generated petroleum products - petrol, diesel and kerosene." Owl semen?
• Hm. I quit buying garbage bags when I got small trash cans in my apt that fit under the sink. Turns out that standard plastic bags from the grocery store fit in them perfectly, so all my plastic bags (when I get them) go to the landfill. But I usually get paper. :) Easier to carry and big enough to put recycling in to cart downstairs.
• Petebest, that "Tilting at Tree Bags" article is awesome! But... was the transcriber's keyboard missing the "fi" key, or something?
• actually multiple plastic bags are very handy for dog poo patrol - one for collecting, one for glove and a third for throwing up in... Apart from that shopping done with reusables until low on three bag dog scenario. Having said that local supermarket refuses to bag groceries unless more than 4 items.Courtesy of dogs and recycling haven't had to purchase garbage bags for years!
• was the transcriber's keyboard missing the "fi" key, or something? Heh. It does look like a find-and-replace gone wrong . . . local supermarket refuses to bag groceries unless more than 4 items I can't stop them from throwing plastic bags at me even if I don't buy anything. Saying "I don't need a bag" only works if I say it multiple times, starting from the very beginning of the transaction, and continuing through the moment they start to put any/everything in a bag. It's like so deeply programmed in them that to not put whatever it is in a bag just doesn't occur to them. Once after I said I didn't want a bag, they gave me one anyway, so I gave it back. They took it and threw it in the trash, as if that's what I meant.
• *shakes fist at Kroger and Safeway*
• I also ask for no bag for stuff like large bottles of laundry soap, 5-pound bags of cat food, 8-packs of soda bottles (and don't get me started on the soda pack bottle rings). Why do cashiers get all flustered if you ask to have those things with no bag? Also, can't resist: Monkeyfilter:all our horse poo makes for a huge hot pile!
• Awesome plastic bag shoes
• Plastic bag shoes - behind the scenes Plastic tote bag out of bags (previously linked, but you didn't click that one, now did you?
• It would seem the time is right in the Intarwebs to come up with the next greatest plastic bag thingy. Anyone? Garden planter? umm . . . birdfeeder? . . . Backpack? Ooh, frosty cold beverage container? Somehow?
• Hey, petebest, you could probably make something that's two layers of plastic bags with water in the cavity between layers, that you could put in the freezer to chill before moulding around a beercan or glass. Maybe some wire through the center to make it hold its shape?
• oo putting it in the freezer may be the genius point there - I'm almost ready to start making the big ball o' "yarn" . . now I'm working on convincing a convenient woman to start crocheting it. Unless I can figure it out. Perhaps the sheepshank knot will be my guide . . .
• convincing a convenient woman to start crocheting it *slaps Pete on back of head with large thawed flounder Dammit Pete! It is not that hard to crochet a chain and hook it back on itself. Get a crochet hook (or carve one) and get to it!! If you can't find someone to show you how--and with that attitude toward women, I'm not wondering why--look on the web. A pantsless five year old could figure it out.
• Heheh. Was specifically referring to one Ms. Best, but if you say it's easy GramMa I bet I can find some destructions on Google or something. Did you see those instructions for the tote bag though? Sheez it's like Assembly code or something. Round 3 - ch 2, hdc in same st, hdc in next st, (2 hdc in next st, hdc in next st) repeat around join with a sl st to top of ch 2 (30) What?? Do the what now? Round 3 . . does that mean it has to go Around, or is it like boxing, 3rd round? Some of you know what it means . . c'mon I hear you smirking with smug self satisfaction! Oooo! You dames! ;) *runs from the flounder*
• San Fransisco bans plastic shopping bags Yay!
• Sometimes I wonder if petebest is myself Will be intersting to see if other cities follow...
• Goods fore Sans Fransisco!
• California! Über Alles!
• Quiet you.
• Heard something on the CBC about some Canadian towns and cities getting in on the act. Leaf Rapids put a levy on each bag sold, which seems like a good approach as well.
• In Calgary seven years ago Superstore gave a five cent refund for each bag of one's own used.
• As long as they put a bag on each levee, to even it out.
• Huh. Kroger just let us know that they're discontinuing paper bags here. Which sucks, because we use those to bag up our paper for recycling.
• I blame Walter H. Deubner, inventor of the paper shopping bag. And on the bag levy: In some countries that have a major litter problem there has been a progressive trend to limit the use of plastic shopping bags. However, the wider impact of such changes needs to be carefully considered. For example, in Ireland, where a 15 cent levy on free plastic shopping bags has been in place since March 2002, their consumption has decreased by 90%, but over the same period, sales of kitchen tidy bags has increased by 77% and of refuse bags by 54%.
• so . . what, they're not using plastic grocery bags but instead using giant trash bags? Weird.
• Yeah, but from my experience, when I switched to canvas shopping bags and had to buy bin liners, the total number of plastic bags I went through in a week went down a lot -- 1 to 2 bin liners a week got tossed, and I didn't end up collecting 6-12 (or more) plastic shopping bags per week. So people may be buying more bags, but the total number in circulation is probably much lower.
• What I've noticed in Ireland since the levy is that plastic shopping bags no longer decorate trees and bushes around the countryside. The bags are no longer considered fully disposable so they aren't abandoned, free to float and blow in the wind until an appropriate branch snags them. Carrefour in France has recently done away with the free cheap plastic bags and is charging for a strong plastic (30 cents) or a plastic + fibre (70 cents) bag. The latter ones are big and last for a long time (I've made 30 trips with one of them). I'm not sure whether this is a law in France or an intiative from Carrefour - I've been to other supermarkets that still give free plastic bags.
• One of the biggest annoyances with free plastic shopping bags these days is that they are so thin they fall apart. If they make it into the house, I can't even reuse them as bin liners or whatever, as they are full of holes.
• That sounds like a great idea, roryk (what Carrefour is doing in France).
• WOW That's some dress. The dress is all hand knit from grocery bags that were the result of actual trips to the grocery store. As soon as I told people I could use their old bags for a project they brought them in by the bag full, I received thousands! The plastic grocery bag came about in the 1950's along with futuristic optimisim about America, so I made a "typical" 1950's ensemble complete with pillbox hat and purse, not pictured. I am going to have my pieces in an art show on recycled art at the School of Art Gallery in downtown Kent along with a group of other people beginning April 19th.
• How to make a plastic bag keeper
• A 2 quart plastic bottle They're talking funny talk.
• I have a couple of these from Ikea. Pretty handy, also good for making really thick pasta.
• For those who like links that work, here. Ikea also sells preview buttons, IF ANYBODY CARES.
• I have one of those, RTD! Mr. Minda hung it up at our last place using the foam tape, and when we took it down a chunk of paint/plaster came with it. It now sits, rather than hangs, in our hall closet.