Personal Responsibility Takes a Holiday

[Mnemjian]

Just a quick one... this lady annoyed me so bad

A lady was purchasing a graphic novel for her son. I asked her if she wanted a bag for it. We have plastic grocery-type bags and smaller paper bags as well. At first she said no to a bag, but then thought for a second and said, "yes he'll need one" referring to her son. Paper or plastic. "Plastic."

SC: [to her son] Soon plastic bags are going to be outlawed.
Son: Why?
SC: Because they're bad for the environment. Stores shouldn't give them out. You can't recycle them and they don't biodegrade.
Son: Oh.
SC: [looks at me pointedly as I put her book in the plastic bag that she SPECIFICALLY ASKED FOR]

I agree that plastic bags shouldn't be wasted, but then why the f*ck did you ask for one if you're so against them??? Weird!

[tollbaby]

and they ARE recyclable.... says right on them :P

Weird lady.

[Salesmonkey]

I love the plastic bags! The store I buy my groceries from sells a trash bin exactly the same size. Food comes in through the bags, non-recyclables and non-compostables go out in the bags. Cat food and cat litter come in inside the bags, cat... waste... goes out in the bags. The circle of life continues.

[Mnemjian]

and they ARE recyclable.... says right on them :P

I wish I had pointed that out to her! But she probably would have catbuttfaced me something awful...

[tollbaby]

You're probably right LOL I'm known as the "bag lady" at work, since I always have seven or eight plastic bags in my desk for emergencies. Although my coworkers poke fun, they're always relieved when they need a plastic bag and - voila! I can pull one out of my drawer and send them on their way (happens far more frequently than you'd think!)

[AyreBiskits]

that really is a no-win situation. you asked her if she wanted paper or plastic, and she said plastic. then makes you out to be an environmental terrorist because you gave her what she asked for. if she had said paper, she would have accused you of murdering trees.

and if she was even more nuttier, she would have never bought her son a graphic novel because she would have told him that it rots your brain and he should just read, oh wait, that's murdering trees. hmmm

[Magpie]

In fairness, they aren't very recyclable. But then again, neither is paper! (Plastic bags are recycled into shopping bags, and anything else that says it used to be a water bottle, like park benches. Brown paper is generally recycled into something that will be thrown out, but not something that will be used for food, or into other products like insulation.)

Doesn't change the fact that she's an idiot. I've discovered in the last five or so years that most stores don't care if you bring grocery bags in with you. No need to get any bag, even if you can't carry the stuff in your hands. (I buy veggies at the grocery store, and some of them you really need to get the small bags for, so we have way more bags for garbage than we need).

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I agree that plastic bags shouldn't be wasted, but then why the f*ck did you ask for one if you're so against them??? Weird!

Because like some people (and here I am thinking of certain politicians and celebrities that shall remain nameless), she doesn't give two shits about doing anything to actually help the planet, at least not when she's the one who has to do it. She just wants to keep up the impression that she "cares." Hence the comment that stores shouldn't be giving out plastic bags.

In short, she's a hypocrite.

[aurelemsrealm]

If plastic shopping bags are not recyclable, why do the Wal-Mart and Kroger locations in my area have collection bins for recycling plastic shopping bags?

I keep a few plastic shopping bags on hand since they do come in handy at times, but I usually take a bag full of bags to the recycling bin when I do my weekly grocery shopping.

[MergedLoki]

I use those canvas reusable bags (when i remember to bring em in teh car) when grocery shopping.

But I use lots of plastic bags 2. i have 2 dogs. wtf else am i gonna pick dog crap up with when i walk them?

[Magpie]

If plastic shopping bags are not recyclable, why do the Wal-Mart and Kroger locations in my area have collection bins for recycling plastic shopping bags?

What I meant by not very recyclable is that you can't turn them into shopping bags. Nor can you turn them into any high quality plastic. (And they can never be used for food packaging once they've been used for anything else, because any contamination will stay in the plastic even after it's been recycled.) Glass or aluminium can be re-processed into the same product again and again. There is no degradation, just some material loss.

Plastics can be re-processed once or twice and that's it. Plastic is a bunch of long chains. Every time you heat them (recycling them melts them) the chains get shorter. If they get too short, they're no longer plastic. There's people working on ways to recycle them and turn it back into basically crude oil, but that's a while off. (If someone throws one of those "bio-degradable" bags in there they can be recycled even less, because those bags have something added to deliberately break up the chains).

Apologises if I'm being too technical or if I'm talking down to people - DH has been in the field so long that I forget what is and isn't common knowledge.

[Chainsmith]

Don't even get me started on plastic bags. I work at an outdoor sports store (camping, hiking, kayaking, climbing etc) and have for years. We have only ever used paper bags. Now the town chamber of commerce is telling us to use their bags too, which are of course plastic and smaller than they look. I ignore them most of the time. They dont pay my checks.

[Shalom]

. There's people working on ways to recycle them and turn it back into basically crude oil, but that's a while off.

There's already a plant in Missouri that's making crude oil out of turkey innards and hog lard, so I imagine it's not that far off. (See article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization. ) So far it's been operating at a loss, because they thought they'd get the turkey byproducts for free and it turned out they had to pay for them, but if they can get more plants online (and figure out how to contain the stench) they might be able to get somewhere.

(edit to add: about 10 years ago there was an article in the NYT about making gasoline from old phone books. This was primarily done because the phone company was mandated to pick up the old ones and needed to get rid of them somehow; the fact that usable fuel was produced was merely a side benefit. I'm thinking that if we can get more turkey-guts plants online, the dent that it might make in the mighty mound of trash that currently goes to landfills would be reason enough to build them; the oil produced is just, umm, gravy....)

[vikingchyk]

What I meant by not very recyclable is that you can't turn them into shopping bags.

Sure you can. You can turn them into plarn and knit/crochet reusable bags