Comments on: A plastic-encased farmers’ market

By: Siel

Siel — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:22:08 +0000

I’m not familiar with the waxed paper bags — when’d they go out of vogue?

There is this one farmer at the Santa Monica market who wants to offer only bio bags AND charge something like a quarter a pop — I think it might be a while before that idea catches on with all the other vendors, but it’d be interesting to see what would happen if he did it on his own –

By: Diane

Diane — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 06:08:46 +0000

I miss the old medium sized paper garbage bags, that were a waxed bag about twice as big as a standard lunch bag. Completely biodegradable, and reusable, if you don’t squish the grapes…

Most markets have been giving a 5 cent discount for bringing your own bags for several years. There’s an incentive to telling them you’ve brought your own bag.

By: Siel

Siel — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:43:37 +0000

The farmers’ market people in Santa Monica are usually really good about not pushing a bag in your face. In fact I’m sure there are quite a few who inwardly rejoice like I did when people don’t take a bag :)

At the checkout, I usually smile and say “I brought my own bag” as they’re scanning the first item. If you frequent a place, they’ll get to know you and start to anticipate your bag –

I use just a trash can, no bag, for my recyclables — I just take the trash can out, dump it, bring it back. This doesn’t work so well for the black bin stuff, which can be messier — for those I end up using the few plastic bags that inevitably come in the house — from guests who used it to bring over food or wine, empty bread bags, and the like. Luckily, I don’t have that much black bin stuff, so I don’t run out of the plastic bags –

By: Beth Terry

Beth Terry — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 03:52:37 +0000

Edie: Using plastic bags as trash bags might save some plastic if you would have purchased trash bags. But they are hell on the environment when they go to the landfill. We buy biodegradable BioBags, which are made from corn, and are completely compostable. They come in 3 sizes: 3 gallon, tall kitchen, and lawn & leaf. They may cost more money than using free grocery bags, but they will save more than money in the long run.

By: Chris O'Brien, BeerActivist

Chris O'Brien, BeerActivist — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:25:39 +0000

Hey Siel,

Just wanted to let your readers know about an opportunity to get a free organic cotton tote bag. Basically, you eat Stonyfield yogurt and turn in the lids. I blogged about it here:
http://beeractivist.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/eat-yogurt-get-free-organic-cotton-beer-sack/

I also wrote a whole section in my book (Fermenting Revolution) about the problems with both paper and plastic versus organic cotton.

Cheers,
Chris “Beer Activist” O’Brien

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 19:15:24 +0000

If you’re a policy wonk, you might like this footage of Ross Mirkarimi, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, introducing his landmark legislation to ban plastic bags.
Mirkarimi has been called the Gregory Peck of the Green Party
(a young Gregory Peck) and we like to show him off.

He said he is amazed at the amount of worldwide attention and praise this piece of legislation has brought him.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CKy8tgs-2eY

By: Edie

Edie — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 17:23:51 +0000

I also use the plastic bags as trash bags. I find the idea of buying trash bags to be wasteful.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:25:42 +0000

I don’t take plastic bags anymore which has resulted in a new problem – sometimes you need a disposable plastic bag and you don’t have one (to send home a wet bathing suit with a visiting kid for example). But I save my bread bags now which work for a lot of things – including wrapping leftovers when you can’t find the tupperware lid (most of the time around here).
Bread bags work for farmer’s market veggies too because they are mostly clear. Also I save mesh onion bags and they work well for non squishy veggies.

By: jason

jason — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 07:24:27 +0000

I usually carry my cloth bag everywhere I go, just in case I buy anything. Luckily, I haven’t had to use a platic bag for a really long time. Unfortunately, my wife still uses bags, but I often save the bags and organize them so she can easily reuse them the next time, which works about half of the time. She thinks I’m crazy, trying to spend all this effort to save bags.

I really get annoyed when people are always trying to give me a bag during checkout. If I don’t catch them in time, I usually take the product out of the platic bag and shove it back to them. Its very rare when someone will ask if I want a bag.

I think the best solution to this is to force stores to charge a 25 cent per bag tax, so consumers will realize the true value of a bag.

The worst thing to see is to someone in front of me at the checkout counter buy a case of bottled water and then wrap it in double plastic bags because of the weight.

Don: You may be interested in flushable/biodegradable cat litter. All you have to do is scoop it and dump it the toilet.

By: don hosek

don hosek — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 05:03:30 +0000

I do have to say that every plastic bag that I get does get reused at least once, generally as a disposal means for cat litter. The exceptions being those bags which have gaping holes in them when I try to use them for cat litter.