[blackle]

I fully agree, however if you're the kind of person who orders groceries, then what ends up happening is that you start collecting reusable bags that you have no way of reusing. I hope that someone starts some kind of "reusable bag recycling" system so I can give the scores of bags I have to a good home

[lxgr]

If the bags are actually reusable, it doesn't seem very hard to coordinate to have the delivery person pick up the last delivery's bags next time they're at your house.

For home grocery delivery, I could imagine that using stackable or collapsible crates or similar containers might even make more sense, assuming the delivery is via car/truck. Why stick to a container optimized for walk-out customers at all?

[OJFord]

Ocado does exactly that in the UK, refunds them too.

[Gigachad]

I had that problem, but then the supermarkets in Australia all switched to paper bags. Now I just chuck them in recycling. Even if they do end up in landfill or a creek, they are paper, in a month they will have disintegrated.

[zeeveener]

In my area, one of our grocery chains has "Compostable Bags" which they package the "Pickup / Delivery" orders in.

My area also mandates municipal composting so the discussion of "But is it _really_ compostable" is moot.

[lokar]

It does not matter much how they do in a landfill. What matters is what happens when left out in the environment, aiui they weather and breakdown pretty fast.

[bagels]

It's really a farce. The old bags were really, really thin. Now, they're reuseable, and so they have to be much thicker, but they're still only used once. This just means that we're making more plastic waste.

[LeifCarrotson]

I don't know what the average number of uses for a reusable bag is, but it's certainly not one. We've got about a half dozen, including a few freezer bags that do most of the work, plus a few that have been repurposed as the "beach activities bag" and "kid's soccer stuff bag" and so on. The ones used for groceries have been used at least once a week for going on four years.

The old bags also averaged slightly over one use, but the mandatory "bag of bags" in the pantry got depleted much more slowly than it filled.

If someone is throwing their reusable bags in the landfill and getting new ones every time, they're using it wrong...which I admit isn't entirely their fault at this societal scale, but let's at least agree it's the expected way to use the tool.

[AlexandrB]

The only grocery delivery service I've used let you return bags the next time they drop food off. I'm not sure how many of them get reused though.

[ImPleadThe5th]

Good idea! But unfortunately the reason I always have more bags is that I forget my bags in the first place.

Maybe you get a few cents back when you return them?

[lokar]

What’s wrong with paper?

[kragen]

making paper is much more environmentally damaging than making plastic

i'm not joking, look it up

[Swizec]

> you start collecting reusable bags that you have no way of reusing

I use them as trash bags for the various small trashcans in the home (office, bathroom, etc). Works great.

Also fantastic for any trash (like fish) you have that you don't want stinking up the big trash can for several days and needs to be taken out asap.