if he wasn't an elected Rep.

Fucking bagger.

I bag my own groceries. I'm good at it, too.

I do my best, and when I do end up with plastic bags, my rule is to always use it at least twice (more times if possible). I really wish more places would use degradable plastic. In Seattle, I often need to protect things from getting wet, especially when I'm waiting at a bus stop, so some use of plastic is inevitable (we do have a plastic bag rule in the city, but some places seem to still give them out). It's also difficult to haul bags with me everywhere since I use a bus for the most part to get around and going to work carrying a bunch of bags on a bus where I'm increasingly unlikely to get a seat is not the easiest thing in the world. I'm trying, though.

I just toss them in the washer and dryer with my other laundry. They're large. They're strong. They have good handles. I can carry two or three in one hand, so I can unlock my house door with the other.

I too ride the bus, almost every day. I carry half a dozen or so rolled up plastic bags in my backpack at all times. They weigh next to nothing and take up almost no space.

I try to keep a few bags at work, though.

own cloth bags. the environment is bad enough

They are sturdier, hold more and the square bottom bags stay upright in the back of my car. Once they're unloaded at home, they go right back in the car for next time. Win win!

Daughter found them for me, love em. Indestructible.

One big problem with "reusable" grocery bags is that they collect bacteria by the thousands. The market where I shop sells beautiful, sturdy canvas bags (with the store name embroidered on, of course) for $5. I've collected a few of those and throw them all in the washer every couple of weeks so they stay fresh. The only time I have them use plastic bags is for meat or other items which could leak onto other items inside my bag.

PS - Just saw your post #6 above. Good on you, MM!!

reusable cloth bags whenever possible, wherever it is I'm shopping. (Full disclosure: I don't do all that much shopping at all any more.)

But I sometimes feel the need to apologize to the grocery store cashiers, because the way their stations are set up means cloth bags are an inconvenience to them. (I used to bag my own, but scanners make the "ringing up" of purchases go way too fast for that to work out well.) They're nice about it, of course.

And I actually had somebody at our local dollar store comment that bringing my own bag was smart, because their bags are so flimsy.

We just take the trolly to the car and load it up directly.
If we are on foot we try to take the cloth or heshen bag but mostly forget so we have a forever growing supply of supermarket brand reusable bags. They are at least useful for lots of things so that is a plus.

For a grocery cart or buggy.

I learn something new every day.

I forget sometimes that we all have different words for stuff and us Australians more so.

But for clarification I mean the big carts you get chained up until you put a coin in.
I confuse my wife too with this stuff.

You have to put a coin in to get a cart/trolly?

I had no idea. Pretty sure we would lose our collective minds here if they tried that.

You never have to walk far for a cart. They're right where the last person left them
Don't bother looking for one in the cart return...

Maybe paying for the cart makes sense...get your money back if you put it back where it belongs...

they used to call them "carriages". Such as on a sign in a supermarket parking lot in front of a metal rack that says, "Please Return Carriages Here". Nobody used that term in everyday speech, however.

I still don't know what they call them here. One thing I do notice is that nearly all the markets have short carts which are way more maneuverable than the full sized ones, and have enough room for a good shopping trip that is not a major stock-up. I can easily get a half rack of beer in and out of the bottom rack of the mini-cart.

I've had to re-stitch the seams on some and my husband replaced the bottom layer of plastic on some, but they are still going strong.

We're so good about using the re-usable bags that we have to plan on getting paper bags - our kitchen garbage and recycling cans are sized to fit regular paper bags. Even though we re-use those until they get nasty, we replace them every month or so. There have been times when we didn't have the paper bags to re-use.

We also have some smaller garbage cans - for the bathrooms and my craft area - that are perfect for standard plastic shopping bags, so every so often we go ahead and get one of those instead of carrying in the re-usable bags. Again, we kind of plan on doing that to have the bag to re-use at home.

Because we line our kitchen trash can with them thus not using plastic trash liners

And we use them for all other kinds of things like taking clothes to goodwill, keeping things cold in a cooler(they are pretty good insulation)

The wife will even cut them up and use them to wrap presents for friends or coworkers(label side in).

We like using things multiple times.

What do all of you use for garbage bags? The kitchen catcher types are a lot thicker than the plastic bags you get at checkout.

I use the 13 gallon "kitchen" bags.

All other garbage is emptied into that can.

are usable for a small wastebasket in a bathroom. Most of the waste in a bathroom, if not flushable, is usually light and dry, such as toilet paper roll cores, band-aid wrappers, and cotton balls and swabs. It's really easy to tie the handles together and toss out with the kitchen trash. I get megapacks of drawstring kitchen bags, and stack the full ones out in the garage until the next time I drive near the garbage/recycling facility, which has separate places to dispose of cardboard, glass, and aluminum cans.

is to get the bags back to the vehicle; shopping doesn't end until the bags are back in the car so you don't get caught short on an unexpected shopping venture.

Have somewhere in the vehicle that's catch all (I have a milk crate in the trunk) and have more bags than necessary just in case.

I collect Trader Joe's bags so it's never a problem.

But the cloth bags are much better because you can safely carry a lot more in them.

And this goes beyond supermarkets. If I forget, I refuse a bag or go back out to my car (I have a crate of bags in the trunk).

or parsley and keep a "garbage bowl" on my counter for tossing in light garbage from cooking, lettuce leaf cores, onion skins. coffee grounds etc. I found a bowl that fits the bags and when it fills up toss it in the main trash receptacle. Double use of the bags and saves me steps.

I own all different ones that say things like, my bookclub only reads wine labels, i am helping the environment, the plastic stops here, etc.

I gave my grandson who is 20 canvas bag with zombies on it. My daughter who is a manager one that says i am a chick manager and has chicks all over it.

Helps to make it fun. I have one from Powells bookstore in Portland, from Canada...

fairly strong and sturdy and then i fill with recyclables when they go out to the dumpster

that it's almost a horde of reusable bags, in all shapes, sizes and materials. I use them every day. Always keep some at work and some in the car. I've given them away to everybody I know.

However, I still have a use for the plastic bags. I save every one of them. See I need them...I have 5 cats so I need these plastic bags to clean the litter pans if you know what I mean.

I never use paper bags at all for any reason anymore.

We recycle and use the bags for paper, plastic, metal and cardboard. Can also recycle the bags themselves.

The ones I use are synthetic, I have a huge one from HD that is made out of nylon. They take up less space and wash up nicely.

and only one or two items per bag. I then burn them in the front yard or wherever I see bees setting up a hive.

- - Donnie J. T., Jr.

The activity that generates is a hoot.

requires kitty litter to be double bagged in plastic. We have three indoor cats. I always ask for plastic for kitty litter waste.

It's either paper or your own bag.

to grab the cloth bags on the way out.

If we don't forget, and we've gotten a lot better, it's cloth. I fought my husband to set a new punitive policy of buying yet more bags at the register whenever we forgot, and that's helped a lot. The last time he argued, I promised to bury the house in cloth bags if that's what it took until we remembered. And now we usually do.

And when we don't it's plastic, overall better set of environmental tradeoffs, plus we reuse them at home.

Good kindling for my high-efficiency woodstove in the winter, and good weed barrier around my garden vegetables in the summer.

When I notice that there are too many of them, I bundle them up and take them to a local thrift shop. They use them to bag purchases for customers. They are very happy to get them. Saves them some money.

I use them to line the trash container under the sink, then it goes to the trash. I used them to collect newspapers, magazines and envelopes, and I use them to contain all other recycle items: milk cartoons, aluminum cans, plastic bottles. All go into the recycle bin that is collected every other week.

Plastic bags, including the plastic sleeves of the daily newspapers, go into the recycling bins in the grocery stores.