How do I feel about plastic bag bans?

Once I got used to keeping market bags in the car, the plastic bans or upcharges didnt matter. Now I’m glad I dont use plastic grocery/pharmacy bags anymore.

I’ve read the first couple of dozen posts and the latest dozen. I may have missed someone else posting what I do.

I keep reusable bags in my car. I manage to forget to take them into the store sometimes. In that case I simply put all my purchases back into the shopping cart, push the cart out to the car, and load my purchases into my bags there before returning the cart.

2 Likes

NJ just passed a plastic and paper bag ban, effective May 2022 (IIRC). It also bans single-use Styrofoam containers. (There are some exceptions, e.g., trays and wrapping for raw meat.) Yay!!

1 Like

javelinas
At least you have deer. We have wandering herds of javelinas, some of which have learned to knock over trash cans when they get big enough. They’re a pain in the arse, but I still like them. The babies are too cute by half

2 Likes

Do they taste good? Do you have an air compressor?

I’m failing to equate the 2 here.
Either a Green Acres or a Pink Floyd joke; I’m not sure which.

grin If you haul a whole animal up from a branch and make a small slice, compressed air will help separate the skin from the flesh. Very fast and efficient way of getting to the point of butchering.

I do like the Green Acres reference. It might be relevant. Not sure. I see binge watching in my future.

Back to the topic, we’ve been long term reusable bag people. In our neck of the woods however curbside grocery pickup means paper bags. We are adamant about reuse. Changed our small can garbage practices. Using them for moving product for work. Perfect? No. Best we can do.

I learned something today.
Never butchered a hog but if the opportunity arises, I’ll know who to call!
:open_mouth:

1 Like

I can do cows, sheep, lamb as well.

1 Like
2 Likes

Wow. There’s a throwback with the Green Acres video. Includes Johnny Whittaker, best know for his role as Jody in “Family Affair”.

1 Like

You’re dating yourself. And me! :slight_smile:

1 Like

Who else wants to sing the whole thing with accents, inflections, and sweeping arm movements?

The other boy with the spoken lines looks familiar too!

2 Likes

“I don’t know, and yes”, she said wondering why he was asking about the compresser.

Compressed air between skin and flesh makes skinning really easy. Mildly graphic: https://www.quincycompressor.com/how-to-skin-a-deer-with-an-air-compressor/

Oh- thanks for the info. I’m not EVEN going to hunt javelina, I find them to be adorable despite their yard ravaging and other mischief and I’m not a hunter anyway. But what you say makes sense about the compressor, I can see that working really well for a hunter.

1 Like

I am in favor of the bans, and my recent experience reinforces this. On complaint about them is that without plastic grocery bags, people will just have to buy bags for garbage, etc.

I normally use my own bags, but for the time being (e.g. COVID), the store I go to (Shoprite) does not let their cashiers pack customers’ reusable bags. I had strained my back, so I had them pack my groceries this time, and ended up with eight bags. Use them for garbage? Well, four of them had holes in them (from the corners of packages, etc.), with at least one with substantial holes. So they are useless for anything that has small particles, liquid, etc.

The bags used to be thicker, but as they’ve made them thinner (cheaper) they’ve become more useless. Plus my cloth bag will hold two 2L bottles, possible even three, while the plastic ones barely hold one.

3 Likes

while i’ve also brought my own reusable bags, there were always a few plastic bags i acquired along the way —enough that i never had to buy trash bags. if fact, i didn’t even know what size i would need to buy. when the bans began in the greater boston area, i stashed as many as i could — even enlisting friends and family.

at the time, i looked for some biodegradable/compostable bags online, but they were only available in lots of at least 1000: way too many bags; way too much money (forget exactly how much). a month ago, i had almost depleted my stash so i checked amazon and got 100 compostable bags for $15.

2 Likes