Something being made from fabric instead of plastic doesn't make it green, amirite?

Yes the people in charge of governments and companies either don't understand or don't care about science, thus we have green practices without green infastructure.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yup. The rich ninnies of my town passed a virtue signalling plastic bag tax, effective tomorrow. So, the upshot is that I will have to pay for my trash bags now, and little else will happen.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

But if you are using one bag repeatedly instead of a ton of plastic bags then it would be more environmentally friendly..

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You need to use that reusable bag somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 times just to break even. If the average reusable bag only gets used, say, 20 times, then it's actually worse. And most reusable bags do not get used 100 times, so they are actually much worse than plastic bags. And hell, I often reuse plastic bags a few times as lunch sacks, packing material, garbage bags, sorting things in a suitcase, etc. That would then put the reusable bag at needed 120-160 uses to break even if my average plastic bag gets uses 1.2-1.6 times. I still usually ask for no bag if i can carry the things, and use as few as possible when doing self-checkout for groceries. This is also a reason i like self-checkout, as the baggers will usually have an SOP for putting like 2 or 3 things in a bag then going on to the next one.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

>If the average reusable bag only gets used, say, 20 times, Why do you think they only get reused 20 times? I've been using the same reusable bags forever, they never rip. Are we talking about the same reusable bags? The fabric ones, right? Why would you ever throw those out?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I still have a couple form the early 00's they have blueberries on them :D

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The average person who buys one a on a green kick may only use it twice. That cancels out a responsible person using in 198 times just to break even with single use of plastic. Not to mention that most people won't use it 100 times so, I'd bet the average amount of time a consistent user needs to use one to break even is probably closer to 700-1000. Just to break even with single use plastic. If 1 in 4 plastic users uses those disposable bags 1.2-1.6 times on average, you can do the math.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Wdym a green kick most stores don't even have plastic as an option anymore so it's really the only choice.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Where do you live? And what stores do you mean? Most places in the US haven't regulated them, and most grocery stores still offer them. Small boutiques and ALDI took the initiative, but most of the plastic bag volume comes from large grocery stores, so the majority of the waste has gone unchecked.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Do you have some sources for those numbers? They sound pretty specific.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Based on their response they're basing this off a jaded view that everyone just gets those on a green kick and actually prefer plastic bags

by Anonymous 1 year ago

They don't prefer plastic, they just don't stick to reusable bags because it it requires an amount of planning or conscientiousness that most people don't exercise on regular basis on things that aren't as important to them.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

So a jaded view that people that get those bags don't actually care

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Who is 'they" and how did you find all this out?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

JFC dude these are just day-to-day observations of average people living and shopping. I'm not presenting it as law, but it's not an unreasonable assumption, I've explained it well enough. If there were grounds as to why you think it's so off the mark, go for it, but just refuting on the basis of no peer-reviewed paper is immature.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Their source is they made it up

by Anonymous 1 year ago

> You need to use that reusable bag somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 times just to break even. that's 2 years of grocery shopping, at 1 trip per week. compared to 100 plastic bags for that same time period

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Right, that's doable, but the point is sailing way over your head. Most people won't do that. They'll buy it, use it a couple times and forget. It's not about what you could do, it's about what happens.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I mean, are you saying that because you wish it was like that, or do you have any statistics?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's the fullest of a picture I've been able to get from what I've seen and gathered from shopping and talking to people over the past decade or so. There is no hard data on actual reusable bag usage.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

So personal observation not any actual statistics to back it up.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There's no hard data for the opposite either. I literally can't find a study on how often reusable bags actually get reused after purchase, but anecdotally it seems like they are not reused enough to break even. It's anecdotal but's it's pretty well corroborated. Ask around and you'll see. Saying that nothing is real without a research paper is immature.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Not saying it isn't real. I know it happens. I have a reuseable bag and sometimes I still wind up getting plastic bags because I forgot it in the car or whatever. I don't doubt that people buy the cheap janky cloth bags that I commonly see being sold at the checkout that fall apart quickly. I am not dismissing that it takes a long time to hit the break even point, only the numbers that **YOU** are giving because you have no study to show it. Saying "I don't think people reuse their bags enough to break even" is worlds apart from saying "You need to use it 100 times to break even but on average people only use them 20 times"

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This!

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's more of a problem with people and education. Or possibly design/production flaws with your bags. I used to go shopping using the same fabric bag for more than 3 years. That's easily 100+ uses. Now I use a smaller and a bigger rucksack depending on how much I buy, and I've been doing so for at least 3 years. I don't know how it is in America but most thicker fabric items here don't just break down after 50 uses from my experience.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I also have a shopping rucksack, nice to hear I'm not alone on this.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I could never go back to only using bags. Bags are for anything that exceeds the limits of my rucksack.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Great, that's not the normal thing people do, so it's crocodile tears in an ocean of waste. I'm not saying it isn't doable, Im just sharing what I observe most people doing.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Some of the bags they sell at the checkout lines in stores are just god awful. The fabric is extremely thin to the point that just folding them repeatedly wears holes in them fairly quickly and the stitching on the handles is so poor you cant put much in the way of canned goods in them without breaking the handle.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Don't forget that it totally depends on the type of bag and which study you choose to reference! For some types of reusable bags like polypropylene bags they need to be reused less than 100 times which is very doable, but a cotton bag needs to be reused over 7,000 times to offset their impact according to a Danish study. That's the same as using it every day for over 19 years, but the bag might not even survive that long. Another study, probably the one you're talking about, says you only need about 100 uses for cotton bags because there isn't a great agreement on how to measure the environmental impact of bags.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's worth noting that these figures almost always looks exclusively at the carbon footprint of the bags which while important is not why people are generally against plastic bags.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Do they account for how many bags or is it all just 1:1? My weekly shop I get somewhere between 5-8 bags if they use plastic, alternatively I have a canvas tote that I use that they can easily fit everything that would have been put in those 5-8 bags into.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Are you really telling me that you expect people will on average replace a reusable bag every year? That's ridiculous

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Most houses I go to have plenty of them laying around that don't get used. I see 99% of grocery shoppers showing up without bags and getting plastic ones. I'd be willing to be they have 10 or so between their basements, pantries, under the sink, etc. Most people just aren't that consistent with environmentally conscious behavior.,

by Anonymous 1 year ago

According to the UK government,. You'd only have to use a cotton/canvas bag 173 times for it to be more beneficial than a single use plastic bag. If you use that bag every time you go shopping for a few years then you've absolutely nailed it. I don't think it's too hard to achieve that and I have a few canvas bags I've had over 10 years that I still comfortably use when shopping. I think you've overestimated how much you'd need to use a material bag for it to be worthwhile.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yeah, OP's claim that it's "virtually impossible" for a fabric bag to pay off is highly suspicious.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Video freshly linked from sci show.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I can confirm, I have a few fabric bags and plastic bags are now bin bags.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

not even years, sometimes I used to get like 10 plastic bags and if something was heavy double bag it. I can fit about 2-3 times the amount in a reusable one and don't have to double bag heavy stuff.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The amount of old people when I worked in retail with single use plastic who needed more bags than they had items was actually amazing No Dorothy I'm not tripe bagging your 1l of milk and putting every other item in its own bag, invest in some canvas bags you old bat

by Anonymous 1 year ago

>You'd only have to use a cotton/canvas bag 173 times for it to be more beneficial than a single use plastic bag Oh, only 173 times... I doubt most people re-use them 173 times. And if you re-use a plastic bag only once, then you'd have to re-use the fabric bag 346 times, if you re-use the plastic bag 3 times, you'd have to re-use the fabric bag 519 times.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I'd say most people who use fabric bags use them every time they go shopping. 1 year of use would cover this alone.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

yea i'm confused how it is so hard to hit that number, unless you only go to the store once a month or something one could easily use a fabric shopping bag that many times in a year or so

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I've been bringing my own bags for 15+ years. I don't always use the same bag-I mostly use TJ woven plastic bags or folded nylon bags. Not sure how this all factors in. It seems to be a much smaller footprint-I no longer have bags of bags.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Since when are we trusting governments? I think you are underestimating how wasteful most people are.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

> Since when are we trusting governments? The video you linked cites a government study.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's sarcasm. I'll be sure to denote it better next time.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

See linked video for more

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Reminds me of 20 years ago when we were getting preached at to use plastic bags as opposed to paper bags because it was "more green" and it saved trees. Now plastic bags are one of the biggest evils out there.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

In my area they banned plastic bags because they literally become garbage in the streets. I haven't seen tons of fabric bags in the streets. The plastic bags are so cheap people used them like garbage bags and they became litter. Obviously it's more expensive to make a fabric bag. Literally no one has been dense enough to argue otherwise. Seems like a strawman argument if I've ever seen one.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I've used the same set of fabric shopping boxes for 8 years almost every week and they're still going strong. I would say they've paid themselves off.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I don't think this is really even an opinion, it's a verifiable truth.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's super easy to take old clothes and stitch them into bags. It's called "reuse, repurpose, and recycle" for a reason. You should first try and reuse the fabric (maybe pass the shirt down to someone who wants it) then repurpose it when it can't be reused anymore (turn it into a bag) and then when it's no longer reusable or able to repurpose them you recycle. Making a bag with fresh fabric isn't following these rules at all.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This is why I refuse to use a condom

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I use a pair of cardboard boxes to put my groceries in. They fit perfectly into the cart. I use the scan app to scan my groceries, so it is a win win. The boxes are recyclable, so it is even more environmentally friendly than the reusable bags.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Source?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Plastic bag- $0.05 Reusable bag- $1 20x, you have to use it 20x, not hard math, and not a hard ask. Keep some in your trunk.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This is a false equivalency. Cost to purchase vs environmental impact are not the same.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Most things pitched as "green" usually fall in at least 2 of the following 3 categories, * Higher cost * Inconvenient * Little to no "green" benefit Fabric bags, paper straws, electric cars, etc.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Electric cars really get me going. Where do people think the lithium for the batteries comes from?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Good to know paper bags are the best option. I use them whenever they're an option.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Objectively incorrect.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Sure the industrial process that makes fabric can be wasteful, particularly of water, but worse than plastic? You know fabric is significantly more degradable, right?

by Anonymous 1 year ago