I have a bag I carry in the car for my almost daily quick grocery runs. The big trips I end up with plastic, but I don't let them bag all the stuff that doesn't need a bag. I should get a few more bags and be done with the plastic, but I also use some for pet matters.

We have decent recycling here. We generate huge amounts of paper waste at the office and we take that directly to the county recycle center and they pay us for it. $100 a ton shredded, $60 a ton unshredded. I don't bother to shred for $40 a ton, because that is a whole lot of shredding.

I saw that, but I heard the announcers discussing whether or not the foot was in. I agree that it was the third foot.

I always insist I get three bags for every individual item I buy at the supermarket. An then I go home and burn each bag separately.

This is going to be close.

Tom Scola are you trying to start a kerfauxfle?

GOOD LORD! C'MON GB!

But I've happily learned that the reusable bags hold more than the regular shopping bags and they're easier to carry. The handles are long enough that I can carry one like a shoulder bag.

I < heart > my new reusable grocery bags! They can hold a crapton -- I got two two-liter bottles of soda and milk in there one day. I love them so much I also bought one from Target! I was pretty proud of myself until I saw some suburban mom with six of them one day. She was serious about it!

I have a reusable grocery bag thanks to Kat--she brought me one of my hospital care packages in one. It lives in the car, and I try and keep shopping down to one of those per trip as often as possible. However I do use disposable shopping bags to hold my recyclables, so they're not eliminated entirely.

I always insist I get three bags for every individual item I buy at the supermarket.

Heh. I was in a big suburb grocery store once, and they practically did that. My friend nearly had an aneurism. Actually, the same home-birth, cloth-diaper friend I mentioned yesterday.

I really should carry a canvas bag in my purse. I have a ton of them, but I only use them coming out of the house or out of the office.

I will have to look it up when I get home but there was an NPR story a few months ago about some of the pitfalls of well intentioned moves like banning all plastic grocery bags. I believe it was Ireland that did just that and found out in a later study that due to folks now buying plastic trash bin liners to replace the grocery bags they had been using to line bins that there was a significant increase in the number of trucks on the road to deliver the increased number of trash bags now selling. Since the trash bags are a thicker plastic is was a fairly impressive increase in the number of trucks and the increased pollution from the diesel engines arguably more than cancelled out the benefit of eliminating the plastic bags.