Will you miss free plastic shopping bags?

[csziggy]

41. We use reusable bags most of the time but plan for a few others

The large paper grocery bags are the right size to fit our kitchen garbage and recycling cans. We reuse those until the bottoms fall out, but every so often we run out and have to plan to not take our reusable bags into the store to get the paper ones!

The plastic bags mostly come from non-grocery stores and get used to line the small garbage cans like in the bathrooms. Our other main use for them is to take returns back to the stores or to collect empty ink cartridges to take back to the office supply to recycle and for credit towards new cartridges.

We have four cans in the kitchen - one for plastic bags and foam containers (these days it ends up with only foam trays by the time we take it to be recycled), one for non-recyclable trash, one for plastic, metal & glass recyclables, and one for paper& cardboard. We also keep a small container under the sink for organics - those go out into the field for the critters to pick over and to rot.

About every other month we take the trash & recycling to the drop off. Three or four large cans of recycling, one of trash. My next step is to get more efficient about sorting out recyclable paper in my office trash - but I have to make room for a second can in there to collect it.