I have several "bags for life", now, mostly because I don't like taking Supermarket A's bag in to Supermarket B.
Most of them are just "thicker plastic bags", but my
main shop (favoured outlet) it's a tough plastic-canvassy material[1]. Both of them, as I bought two of them on different "arrived unprepared, without a bag" visits, one of about 50% more volume which is useful, though is more awkward to carry around 'in anticipation'.
Meanwhile, I still have a number of prior 'single use' plastic bags from before the changeover era, which I will (as I always have) gradually use for other baggable tasks (e.g. not-yet-dried[2] freshly washed clothing I wish to transport in a bag) until they wear out enough to be delegated to one more final use holding other recylables...
So I've got a very low 'throughput' though I have
many plastic bags.
But, familiar as I am with the BsFL, it dissappoints me that I see both the 'thicker plastic' bags
and the faux-woven kind just sitting in hedgerows (either empty or containing whatever other rubbish it was that people wanted to fly-tip nto a hedgerow on that small scale). People have endured paying the mandated 5p, 50p or whatever for the bag and - while it was still usable[3] - added insult to their wasteful injury.
(Or, charitably, lost them. I had a Star Wars-branded bag for one store, which I had stuffed in my pocket when I set off to walk to there, once, but it had obviously jumped out at some point during the two mile walk there, and it was a windy day so, though I retraced my steps across fields and through woodlands with my new-bought BFL full of shopping, I did not spy its distinctive coloration.)
So it's swings and roundabouts. Though maybe the disposed-of BsFL aren't too much more resiliant than their earlier cousins, and even not anywhere as near as 'wind shreddable' and otherwise torn into strips as the old, lighter bags, nor quite so misidentifiable as jellyfish in the eyes of sea-turtles. (They might still, or additionally, shred microplastics, though.)
Also, apparently to ecological footprint of
hemp bags-for-life, usually emblazened with an "I'm green!" message for fashionable bragging rights, compared to plastic ones, is much, much worse. Though I can't find the definitive figure on this right this now, it's something like a hemp bag needs to be used hundreds of time to out-green a tough plastic bag used for dozens of jobs. (Though maybe they'd ultimately be better if 'lost' in a ditch.)
Which just goes to show that "it's complicated". And I'm no eco-angel myself, as I was happy enough to use the free thon bags
until the charges came in (which I'm not confident was not just good business/PR for major shops to charge, rather than anything else).
[1] Close examination reveals no P.E.T. or similar mark printed on. It looks to be
textured as if a strip-woven material. The careful flat-bottomed bag (that folds flat by triangular inversions, rather than a naturally flat bags with a set of 'expansion' folds that lesser bags use) is thread-stitched up the narrow sides, around the vulnerable edges and corners, around the infolded top edge and to attach the handle which is definitely more cloth-like (but probably polyesterish).
[2] I
sometimes don't quite get my laundry fully done before I rush off somewhere, and there's always a radiator/chair back to drape things on, even if there's no iron.
[3] I've never had a problem with the faux-woven bags (it looks like the first thing that'll go on one of them is the stitching, from the rough wear I've already inflicted., but I've got needle and thread, so I could always repair that...) but when the mere 'thicker plastic' ones gained holes (too many 2-litre bottles of pop?)
that store would replace it at no cost (and do I-know-not-what with the one that had failed to outlive me).
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Topic: AmeriPol thread (Read 3582934 times)