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.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

Dude! WTF was all that!?!

The Football gods are fucking with us?

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.

That makes a ton of sense to me. I hardly ever buy garbage bags. But I could still use fewer plastic bags at home.

We work on cutting down on the number of plastic bags we bring home but use them for all kinds of things around the house. I think overall we need to reduce use of them but I'm against things like complete bans.