[mrmincent]

I would kill for this for when I’m buying fresh produce at the shops. Right now I just raw dog the produce into my basket as putting 4 apples into a plastic bag to ease the weighing and transport home seems like a selfish thing to do to the environment, but something that starts to break down soon after that sounds great.

[latexr]

Why don’t you bring plastic bags from home? They are very much reusable, you don’t have to throw them out. They are also quite easy to fold into small shapes and keep on you, or your car, or whatever. I have plastic bags which have endured for literal years. I also decided early on that if I forget to bring a bag, I either do without or have to go back to get one. You start remembering really fast after a few times of forcing yourself to go back.

Another thing you can do is just take a cardboard box from some product in the store. This may depend on country, but where I live the shops leave products on their transport boxes on the shelves. Walking around the store I can usually find one empty box, or maybe one almost empty that I can move the products from into another box for the same product next to it. Then I just take the box and use it to transport my groceries. Stores just throw those boxes out anyway, so they don’t care if you take them (I have asked). At this point it’s a bit of a game for me, to guarantee I always find a box. I have a personal rule never do anything that would make the lives of the workers harder in the process.

[fy20]

I have a cupboard full of bags at home I can reuse. It's right next to my door. Really easy to get to.

75% of the time I forget to take a bag to my car.

As well as all the single use bags (paper and plastic) I bought, I also have jute bags that I got years ago and are still holding up. I like them better as they are bigger and stronger.

Even if I managed to get a bag, the other 75% of the time I forget to take it into the shop and leave it in my car.

Even if I manage all of that, 25% of the time I will end up not having enough bags.

What I would like to see is some kind of deposit system with stronger bags (like my jute bags). Then when I actually remember I can bring them back to the store for someone else to use.

[jtc-hn]

We use a collapsible (plastic) shopping basket/tub-with-handles for wet produce, the stuff the grocery store insists on spraying periodically, and things like tomatoes where we don't care if they get wet. The store clerks are used to it now and prefer it because they don't have to scan through bags and just put the produce back in the basket afterwards.

If you go this route, keep onions and garlic separate. They last longer if they stay dry.

[lstodd]

This. HDPE lasts. So reuse it.

Cardboard not so much, but where I live one can just take how many boxes one can haul off various shops and they will just thank you.

[awalsh128]

Because I forget them at home most of the time on the way to something else.

[nielsbot]

I quit using bags for produce--I just put the produce in my basket or cart and then straight into the checkout bag on my way out of the store.

The exception is small loose produce like snap peas.

[cyberax]

Ugh. That's a REALLY bad idea for anything that you don't thoroughly cook.

[cm2012]

People dramatically over weight how bad plastic is for the environment. The impact of a 10 min car ride = 10,000+ plastic bags of emissions. And in first world countries almost no household plastic ends up in the environment.

[positron26]

Can't imagine this survives napkin scrutiny. A ten mile drive isn't using nearly as much hydrocarbon mass as 10k plastic bags. While most of the plastic hopefully winds up in a landfill, most of the gasoline is water and carbon dioxide by the end. It's tires versus bags. While tires shed, the mass lost in 10min is definitely quite a bit lower than 10k bags or the fraction that escapes the waste pipeline.

[AlecSchueler]

I cycle to the supermarket and every bush I pass on the way is full of plastic.

[insane_dreamer]

> The impact of a 10 min car ride = 10,000+ plastic bags of emissions.

Emissions isn't the main problem with plastics.

But yes, we should also cut down on driving cars, or drive EVs, or take public transport.

[tw04]

>People dramatically over weight how bad plastic is for the environment.

I can only give a: what in the fuck are you talking about?? Modern medicine is literally finding microplastics in men's testes. "People" are dramatically underestimating how completely and utterly screwed the next dozen generations of humanity are with the plastic waste we've blanketed the earth in. Assuming humans survive that long.

[csomar]

That's emissions. The problem with plastics is not emissions but their biodegradability (or lack thereof).

[ctm92]

it's not about CO2 emissions, it's about plastic waste that eventually degrades to microplastics

[lunarboy]

SAME. It kills me inside when people wrap things like fruits and potatoes in plastic that have natural peel they'll remove before eating anyways

[ehnto]

Japan is wild for this, but also pretty good at recycling plastic in general.

Bananas are often wrapped individually for sale. You buy a box of biscuits and they're often individually wrapped in plastic etc.

[tw04]

Why don't you just buy some re-usable fruit bags?

https://www.target.com/p/lotus-original-reusable-produce-bag...

[not_a_bot_4sho]

> I just raw dog the produce into my basket

[th0ma5]

It's crazy, and how fast "glazed" became commonplace.

[nerdponx]

Bring a cloth bag to put the apples in after checkout.

[ars]

The plastic bag also prolongs the life of the produce, which is the main reason I want it.

Wasting produce is much worse for the environment than wasting a bag. After all if you don't litter the bag, throwing it out is pretty harmless.

[jay_kyburz]

we use these fresh and crisp bags. They sound like a gimmick but they really do work. We reuse a bag for months until its full of holes and not doing its job well anymore.

https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/2824/fresh...

[squigz]

Why not use a fabric bag?

Either way good on you

[koolala]

Would be nice to have bags like that with their weight printed on them that machines trust.

[weaksauce]

the places around here are using compostable plastic bags. not sure what it's made of but it can be composted in municipal facilities according to the bag. one downside is they are green tinted and harder to see what is in there but if it removes some of the plastic killing the ocean then i'm for it... assuming it's not a plastic that degrades into microplastics.

[mook]

> it can be composted in municipal facilities according to the bag

Note that "according to the bag" is very different from "according to your municipality"; my understanding is that most places actually can't handle them, and they might need to divert your compost to the landfill if it has too much of those plastic bags. They can be composed under certain conditions, but whether the facility your municipality uses has those is unclear.

See also "flushable" wipes that must not be flushed down the toilet.

[throw101010]

Most of these at least in my region are made from cornstarch. They decompose well/without "microplastics" but only under correct conditions.

Home composts aren't usually meeting these, their temperature isn't going high enough for full decomposition and you can have traces of polymers left behind. I throw them in the trash for compostable waste because thankfully my collectivity collects these to generate biogas and my guess is they do end up in much larger/managed composts where they can fully decompose.

[ars]

> but if it removes some of the plastic killing the ocean then i'm for it

It doesn't. The plastics in the ocean don't come from your grocery store. They come from fishing gear and from places without municipal trash service.

Honestly? It's basically greenwashing, it doesn't actually do anything at all. No one ever composts this things, and landfilling or incinerating a bag does not harm the environment.

[kjkjadksj]

I just threw one of those into my compost pile last month and it’s still there. No clue how long it’s supposed to take.

[blamestross]

Ironically i only use the produce bags to wrap raw chicken and beef in an entirely different section.

[hedora]

I’d guess paper would work fine for that purpose, except that it’s harder for the checkout person.

[sitharus]

I've been doing that since before anyone cared, it just seems wasteful to use a bag for a handful of things. I use bags if I buy more than a few of something, or if it's something with dirt on like potatoes.

[foxyv]

I bring these little net bags from home. They work great to keep the veggies separated.

https://a.co/d/4luSE9Q

[ericmay]

We have been using linen bags from Rough Linen and have been pretty happy with those.

[sircastor]

We've got reusable mesh bags that we use for this.

[account42]

Paper bags solve that use case much better.