Poll: paper or plastic

[SwampDonkey]

The big supermarkets here have enviro bags now. I suppose they are made from recycled plastics. Nothing to stop anyone from using their own cloth ones. Paper bags for groceries went out of here years ago as soon as Irving started their on plastic bag business, since they run the largest refinery in Canada, and building a second one. 

My father used paper and burlap in the potato business. I remember wrestling those wired up, 1000 burlap bag bundles. What wasn't so fun was toting them full of 100 lbs of potatoes and stacking them on pallets 8 feet high. :D

[Bibbyman]

When Mary shops at Wal-Mart,  we get about 20 plastic bags.  Some with just one item in them.

We also do a lot of bulk shopping at Aldies - they charge 5¢ for a paper bag I think.  Mary takes a big box and has it in the back of the Durango.  She'll empty the cart of all the small items in the box and the rest just has to hold on the best it can.

There is a new grocery store in town. It's not a mega-mart and it's on our side of town making it even better.  Mary's shopped there a time or two.  The last time she said something about all the plastic bags and they asked if she wanted paper she said yes so they d-sacked all the stuff and re-stuffed it in paper bags.

[treebucker]

Ok, I saw something on TV last week where a company was using recycled grocery bags mixed with wood chips to produce decking boards. The boards contained color throughout and were guaranteed not to warp, split, check, etc... I can't remember if I saw it on The History Channel's The Boneyard "Garbage" episode or on Ask This Old House or on This Old House.  This seems to bring the wood back into the grocery bag. Or is is the grocery bag back into the wood?

I use whatever is handy (paper, plastic, boxes, shirttail, nieces, nephews, etc.)

Do fences and power lines geta vote here? They sure do like them plastic ones. :D

[schmism]

i use a combo of both.

I perfer to bag my own as i know what i want in what bags.

Boxy sq stuff i put in paper.

heavy bulky stuff (cans etc) i put 3x more in one bag then double bag it,   i dont want to have to carry 15 bags with 2 items in each bag!

[isawlogs]

 
Here we still have choice of plastic or paper in the smaller convinience stores .. the box stores almost all went to plastic .   We do have some bags available at the stores , these bags are made of heavy plastic and have handles sewed to them , much like the bags that Eaton's and Sears had a long time ago ( I dont recall there names ...  this happens to me from time to time ...  :  )  we buy them for one dollar and the store credits you .03 cents for every bag you use for your groceries . I had one with me at the piggy roast ... it never did make it back over da border   :D

[SwampDonkey]

Some stores here now are weaning the public off plastic bags by charging $0.05 a bag at the grocery til. Many will be toting those cloth bags or boxes. Some store chains have been doing this for over 10 years in other provinces. In Wal-Mart the other day I noticed a big bin full of paper grocery bags, only they weren't labeled as such. I forget now what they were marketing them as. It never took in my memory cells. ;D

[Ironmower]

I ain't seen paper bags in the grocery stores around here in 20 years :( My wife keeps'em and crochets rugs out of them ;)