Shopping & Bags

When grocery shopping, do you pack your groceries in:

  • plastic bags (whether you buy them or not)

    Votes: 35 40.7%

  • reusable canvas bags

    Votes: 42 48.8%

  • plastic tote boxes

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • other (please explain)

    Votes: 9 10.5%
  • Total voters
    86
D

ditzyscrap

New member
OK...so...just a random thread, lol...and poll.

Yesterday at the grocery store, they started charging for plastic bags. 5 cents a bag. Up until now there's only been one store that has ever charged for bags (Superstore)...the store in town is a smaller branch of it (Extra Foods).

So anyway, we ended up buying some reusable canvas bags because of the principal of having to pay 5 cents for each bag (which are WAY smaller and break easier). Plus we have like millions of plastic bags in our house...they make me crazy. I was considering buying a couple of the plastic tote boxes too, but didn't have the cash for it - I probably will on payday, though.

I get why they do it, though. Though the baggers tend to underpack the bags, like 1 loaf of bread in a bag, 1 bag of chips in a bag, etc. THAT makes me crazy too.

SO, my random question is...do you use canvas bags, plastic tote boxes, or just your groceries packed in plastic (whether or not you have to pay)?
 
I voted for plastic *gasp*. Mostly because of the convenience. BUT... I'd like to add that I would *love* to use reusable bag (canvas, etc) if it weren't for the fact that I do my grocery shopping in bulk and would need about 15 totes for one shopping trip alone.
 
We still use the plastic bags because we can never remember to bring our canvas bags with us.
 
I voted reusable canvas...although I'm not sure they are actually canvas. They are whatever my Giant Eagle sells for their "earth friendly" bags!! I have about 30 of them and of course they cost a pretty penny but I guess every little bit helps and I hate those darn plastic bags :thumbdown:

I also use boxes when I go to Sam's club since most of those huge things would rip my poor little reusable bags!!! :D
 
ditzyscrap said:
I get why they do it, though. Though the baggers tend to underpack the bags, like 1 loaf of bread in a bag, 1 bag of chips in a bag, etc. THAT makes me crazy too.
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I also wanted to add that we always pack are own to for this very reason!! Who wants to take more trips then they have to up a huge flight of stairs (we have an integral garage and it opens into our finished basement) :thumbdown:
 
I have cloth bags.. my market had a promo going for a while and they were like 99 cents.. so I bought a billion of them lol.. before that I only had one or two, and it was a pita.
 
I use the reusable ones from the grocery store, boxes in some of the stores that do not have bags like Costco, Sams and B.J.'s and plastic bags in others so I picked other. (oh and jsut wanted to tell you that some of the grocery stores here are now charging for the use of a cart also)
 
I know I think so too. I think their explanation is it keeps the costs in the store down because they dont have to replace carts and people are more likely to bring them back into the store to get their quarter back. It is a discount grocery store though so it isnt like a huge chain at least down here it isnt. I do not shop there because they dont really carry much that I buy but my fil and mil shop there all the time thats how I know what they charge for LOL
MelissaL88 said:
That's just wrong, Jessica. :blink:
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Plastic -- we use them for dirty diapers! I only have one canvas bag and it's a red Target one. Would it be okay to bring that into a different store to use? I'd feel kinda weird about it. hehe :-)
 
I bought some canvas bags a couple of years ago and have used them since. My sister gave me a HUGE sturdy plastic bag at Christmas that I love! I can usually fit all of the groceries for the week in 3 bags. It's so much better than having @20 small annoying plastic bags.
 
Depends what we want Mark does most of the shopping and if he's only getting stuff I want he just puts it in his rucksack, when he gets things for Nan he has to use plastic carrier bags because she always wants things like washing powder and he ties them to the handle bars on his bike. When we do a massive shop we have to use plastic bags because otherwise trying to pack them into a taxi and then get them out on the other side is a nightmare. We reuse all the plastic bags in the house though for the bins around the house we have to seperate rubbish and recycling. I do have reusable bags but they mostly get used for storing toys lol. Trolleys have been pay to use for as long as I can remember you put a £1 coin or a shopping token in them and you get it back when you put the trolley back. I despise food shopping if there home delivery service didn't suck so much I wouldn't ever bother to go lol as it is I manage to get away with once a month and sometimes not even that often. Mark doesn't really exactly how much I love that he goes and picks up this or that on his bike lol. Hugs Crystal xx
 
newfiemountiewife said:
Plastic because I use them in my garbage cans! Otherwise, I have to buy garbage bags too, so there's no difference, IMO.
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ditto -- well, for the bathrooms.

Also, on yard clean up day, the kids can hold those way easier than lugging a box around.

So, yeah, I get plastic, but I totally reuse them!
 
I use plastic bc I use them for garbage bags too. Once they start charging for plastic I will buy the canvas ones and use those.
 
I use canvas bags most of the time. However, we use paper bags for our recycling, so when I run out then I'll "forget" my canvas bags for a trip...
 
I use either plastic or paper but I need to buy some canvas bags...I'm trying to find some that are big enough to actually hold more than 2 or 3 items...
 
We use the reuseable ones as often as we remember... but a lot of times we forget and we get plastic.

About the charging for carts - Canada has been doing that for YEARS at a lot of places. Safeway, Superstores, Sobey's, Zellars, Canadian Tire (like Home Depot)... Most places its just a quarter, but some places, its a full dollar. It doesn't bother me though, because you get the money back when you return the cart to the bay.
 
scrapperjade said:
We use the reuseable ones as often as we remember... but a lot of times we forget and we get plastic.

About the charging for carts - Canada has been doing that for YEARS at a lot of places. Safeway, Superstores, Sobey's, Zellars, Canadian Tire (like Home Depot)... Most places its just a quarter, but some places, its a full dollar. It doesn't bother me though, because you get the money back when you return the cart to the bay.
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LOL yeah...and if you're in the city, it's a great way to make money...go around and return all the carts people are too lazy to return. ;)

ETA: It's only a pain if you don't have any change, lol...then you have to go into the store to the customer service desk and ask for a quarter for a cart. I hate that!
 
we use our own reusable bags. My brother started me out this past Christmas with 6 (along with a way to love the earth book - he's a hippie. hehehe). Since then I have added more bags to my stash, I think I have 15 now. I keep them in the car, that way I can't say I forgot them (I bring them in, unload them, and take them right back out to the car). When we go to Wal-Mart, I end up using just about every single bag I own too. hehehe Since I started using them faithfully, I haven't used a single plastic bag while shopping.

I also pack the bags myself 90% of the time, otherwise they don't get filled right. lol

Oh, and everywhere we shop, except Wal-Mart, you pay for the cart. You put a loonie in ($1 coin here in Canada), and you get it back when you return the cart. We actually have coins that are shaped like the loonies that we purchased at the grocery stores, we keep one in each vehicle, that way no matter who goes shopping, we always have a "loonie" for the cart.
 
ditzyscrap said:
LOL yeah...and if you're in the city, it's a great way to make money...go around and return all the carts people are too lazy to return. ;)
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Hahaha! So true! I remember doing that when I was like 10! If I found a cart and got a dollar I was in heaven! I did that once and then felt bad cause I found the cart IN the store, BY the bathroom. After I returned the cart and got my loonie, I realized that the person who owned the cart was probably in the washroom, haha! WHOOPS!
 
tuneskids said:
Oh, and everywhere we shop, except Wal-Mart, you pay for the cart. You put a loonie in ($1 coin here in Canada), and you get it back when you return the cart. We actually have coins that are shaped like the loonies that we purchased at the grocery stores, we keep one in each vehicle, that way no matter who goes shopping, we always have a "loonie" for the cart.
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Extra Foods used to sell those coins and it would attach to your keys (and then click off when you'd put it in), but stopped selling them once people were saying they were getting stuck in the carts. We have one that fell off it's keychain, and it stays in the car all the time for when we go shopping there.
 
I probably shouldn't be admitting this, lol...but when the dollar carts started coming in, it was said because it would cut down on theft of carts. So my friend and I went to the store, walked to the front of the corral and paid for the first cart so it would unhook from the bar at the front. Then we walked away with like 20 carts, lol. We didn't steal them, though...just pushed them onto the road...
 
cant do that in most places here because the carts wheels all lock so it will not move once it gets past a certain point in the parking lot. My son was pushing one across the parking lot the other day to put it in the cart area outside and it locked up on him. He was a good ways away from the edge of the parking lot too LOL

ditzyscrap said:
I probably shouldn't be admitting this, lol...but when the dollar carts started coming in, it was said because it would cut down on theft of carts. So my friend and I went to the store, walked to the front of the corral and paid for the first cart so it would unhook from the bar at the front. Then we walked away with like 20 carts, lol. We didn't steal them, though...just pushed them onto the road...
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kresta said:
Plastic -- we use them for dirty diapers! I only have one canvas bag and it's a red Target one. Would it be okay to bring that into a different store to use? I'd feel kinda weird about it. hehe :-)
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I have two target ones too.. :] I bring them to the market with me lol.. who cares ^_^
 
kresta said:
Plastic -- we use them for dirty diapers! I only have one canvas bag and it's a red Target one. Would it be okay to bring that into a different store to use? I'd feel kinda weird about it. hehe :-)
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We bought 4 from Extra Foods and I'll take those everywhere now, I think. I'll likely buy a few more from various places, but I don't think stores really care where you get the reusable bags from. Really, unless they're charging for plastic bags, you bringing your own bags saves them money in the long run.
 
I bought some canvas bags....but sometimes they don't make it back into the van before the next shopping trip (or dh empties the van to use it and for some reason can't stand to have shopping bags taking up that itsy bitsy lil bit of space)...or I forget to take them into the store
 
I have a few but never remember them. The Target ones seem to be better quality than WalMart reusable bags. The best ones i got were from HEB around Halloween. They are kinda like oilcloth. Those suckers are strong!
 
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