my trader joes cloth bags are infinitely better than paper OR plastic.
this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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The unexpected part of going with the better reusable bags is not having to worry about weight or the bag splitting. You can fulfill all those single-trip fantasies.
oh definitely i walk everywhere too so it helps.
actually i went to scotland last year on vacation and got some sainsbury's bags and i still use them. they're super durable.
Anecdotally, it has curbed my own use. At first I was a little irritated but quickly realized that the collection of bags at home was an overwhelming waste when 80% of the time I was only carrying 2-3 items, which I can easily hand carry.
It was a pet peeve of mine to watch people put a small item in a bag, wrap the whole thing and hand carry it.
Nice!
Ten years ago I bought a pack of four canvas shopping bags off of Amazon, and I've used them ever since. They're fantastic. I have one with a small tear that I will sew back up by hand, but by and large they're awesome quality.
I’ve saw a lot of embroidery patching in Pinterest I definitely plan to use in my tote bags. It just adds more love to them:)
Yeah, it's really surprising how easy it is to do a large percentage of your shopping without bags. For larger shopping trips you will need something of course, but for the way most urban residents live, you dive into a store for five things at a time and usually end up with some kind of bag or box along the way, so just "winging it" works more often than not.
Anecdotally, it has made things worse. The shopping bags were already being reused as garbage bags, now I have to buy rolls of single use plastic bags instead. Worse, those tote bags are everywhere now, and so much less ecological.
I don’t see that. Where I live, plastic bags had gotten so thin and shitty over the years that they already weren’t suitable to reuse as trash bags any longer. It usually doesn’t matter that my grocery bag has holes but I do care if my trash bag has holes. So I already had to buy single use bags for trash
Current reusable bags are thicker and don’t usually have holes but are still unsuitable because they cost 10¢ for each
For small trash like the bathroom we don’t use bags, just the bin itself. I have reusable menstrual items so it’s not like the trash gets all that gross, maybe the worst is used q-tips, but for that the trash gets a wipe down every now and then. Eventually for the litter box, I’ll just be switching to using the plastic bag the litter itself came in for taking out the old litter, if that makes sense. Just some ideas but every person is different on their needs and routines.
You don't still collect them from random places? A bunch of places near me still use plastic bags, either the heavier ones or the plain old thin ones even if they're not supposed to. But they're few and far between so it's not a problem. I save those ones and use them for the bathroom trash can.
You don't have to buy garbage bags, you can just put stuff in the bin unbagged.
The heavier plastic bags do contain more plastic which I guess is arguably worse but they get reused and don't get picked up by a slight breeze and wafted into the nearest waterway.
That’s gross. You wouldn’t do that with your kitchen trash can, I don’t know why you’d suggest it in the bathroom.
Depends on your collection service. If they don't specify bagged waste you can just hose the bin out as needed. A tiny bit of extra work to avoid needless plastic in the environment.
My kitchen waste goes into paper bags when that is what I get from grocery store.
You say this is gross, but, the few rich houses I been in, these rich houses often don't have bags in their bins. They are emptied frequently enough. It boggled me when I noticed it in more than one house.
We have no plastic bags where I am, I went through the loss of the bathroom trash can bag. I tried paper bags, obviously no go, they are too big. That's when I remembered, snd just went bagless. I clean my bathroom well enough, it's fine really. I empty it 1-2 a week. If it looks gross rinse it out. That's what their maids do.
Bathroom trash is much different than kitchen
Did I miss something? There are folks who use the flimsy plastic shopping bags for the kitchen can!?
Even with a plastic shopping bag ban, you still may purchase trash bags. ..
While some folks can go the extra mile and manage their kitchen trash in other, non plastic ways, you certainly don't have to.
I really, really enjoy, not seeing plastic shopping bags floating around on our streets. It's been years of the ban, and you don't see it on the streets like you use to. I'm really happy with the plastic bag ban in my state.
Two big changes for my home with the ban, learning to remember your bags for the grocer, and finding alternatives for the bathroom trash. Even got a square trash bin for my husband's office that fits paper bags, but the kitchen trash is a different story.
It's okay to take smaller steps towards a less plastic intensive home.
Maybe you compost, so you're not throwing away food garbage? Otherwise, it would start smelling almost immediately.
That's what I always think as I walk in, but as I start juggling more and more, I usually have to pull out the ripstop tote that's always folded into my small purse. And sometimes add a paper bag if it gets to be too much
I'm glad to be rid of the jellyfish bags, even though I now need separate "compostable" pet bags that aren't really compostable.
They work until your state government is run by oil & natural gas lobbyists.
Working for companies who now get 5 to 10 cents per bag, an item that only ever cost them money previous to the ban.
Are you buying new bags every time? The whole point is to bring your own reusable bag instead.
What he is saying, that bags that were complimentary = calculated loss, now fetch an actual income for the companies.
We still have a couple of local groceries here that give you paper bags.
Surely they're talking about paper, because plastic is banned. Right?
Some cities only have a ban on free plastic bags. One can still take their purchases home in a plastic bag if they refuse to try carrying their own bags, but they must buy the bags.
Some cities were able to move on from this semi-ban to a full ban on plastic bags. But the semi-ban can still be very very contentious to get enacted.
I get lastic because I pay either way but plastic is more reusable than paper.
I’m finally getting into the habit of bringing bags to the store, although I recently accidentally recycled them so now I have to buy more
It’s not hard to remember reusable bags. I leave a bunch in my car for this reason.
I anecdotally see far less people plastic bag waste around my community. I just wish we’d do the fixed drink caps like Europe does next.
When it had a plastic bag ban in place, the town of Laredo, TX saved something like a quarter or half million dollars a year on waterway cleanup because there were so many less plastic bags blocking everything.
Then the legislature and maybe state Supreme Court struck down the bans.
No it's not hard, but I still very rarely see people supplying their own bags. Instead they're paying five to ten cents per bag which used to be free but now is a vector for profits to the company, and which used to be made of thin flimsy plastic but is now thick plastic that will take much much longer to degrade. Like I said these bans have been great for the grocery stores profits. It's nice that they do quantifiably reduce plastic waste, though.
Hey Kroger, can you please add handles to your paper bags?
Thanks
I will never, ever trust paper-bag handles if I'm carrying anything heavier or more fragile than a bag of chips.
Aldi had paper bags, then got paper bags with handles, the handles on theirs sucked. If you accidentally hold the bag in any direction other than straight down the glue just tears. I much prefer the normal paper bags because you don't have the false hope that everything will be fine and find out it wasn't.
No. You're not supposed to use them.
They're supposed to be shitty, so you bring your own bag (or buy a cloth one) yourself
I mean I almost always have a reusable bag since plastic's been banned in my city for like 10 years, but for those very rare times I forget my bag it would be really, really nice if the paper bags weren't totally useless. I agree with your point though, just cool it worked to have both :(
Having really shitty bags is probably the best idea of all.