Do you ever pay any attention to the paper bags you get at the grocery store? (Maybe you get “sacks” instead of “bags.”) I didn’t until Colorado banned the nice plastic ones. The stores had to change to paper, for which my store charges 10 cents each. (Reusable cloth bags are encouraged for anyone who can remember to use them or is willing to buy them at the store.) I do miss the old plastic ones. They were recyclable too, but I always kept a few around because they were so handy for so many things.
The handles on these new bags are a huge convenience when you have to pick them up from the porch, go up one step and through a door, then through the living room to the kitchen. (One young female delivery driver, when she saw me, offered to carry all the bags into the kitchen for me. I was so appreciative! It seems these days that delivery drivers are instructed not to go into a home for fear of encountering an ax murderer or something, and we homeowners are afraid to admit them for the same reason.)
Anyway, I’ve been using grocery delivery since the pandemic and it’s amazing how fast the bags pile up (even though they get picked up for recycling every two weeks). As I was folding and stacking a few the other day, I noticed the print on the bottom: “Made in Italy.” Seriously? My local grocery store, part of the Kroger chain, buys Italian grocery bags? Maybe Kroger is being “green” by buying paper bags that are sturdy enough to be reusable and are made of 40% recycled material. But I wonder what’s going to happen when Italy gets hit with Trump’s tariffs.
I also wonder what other little everyday items are going to get more expensive — in addition to all the shrinkflation, skimpflation, and inflation that’s already taking place. Fortunately, I had no plans to buy a new car this year; even used cars are soaring in price. And certainly I had no plans to buy thirty dolls for anyone. Not even one doll. (I do worry about those children who might have been lucky to get one doll and now might not get any.) But I suppose I should brace for more expensive Italian grocery bags. And be grateful they don’t come from China.
-30-
Interesting. Down here in Missouri we are still mostly using plastic. As to recycling, I asked AI and it said this: “While some stores offer programs to recycle plastic grocery bags, the overall recycling rate for plastic bags is low, and many bags may end up in landfills or incinerators. The main issue is that plastic bags are difficult to recycle through traditional curbside programs due to their lightweight, flexible nature and the potential for them to cause jams in recycling machinery. ” There seems to be no good solution. When I get deliveries, thankfully, they are always willing to deposit in my kitchen.
We didn’t put the plastic bags in our recycle bins. We bundled them and returned them to the store for recycling (or their delivery drivers would pick them up when they were here). I don’t know what happened to them after that, but they weren’t to go into the city’s recycling. The concern here was that they blow around easily, end up who knows where, endangering wildlife, hanging in forests, etc. Not biodegradable. Supposedly some could even end up in rivers and ultimately make it to the ocean. I’m not convinced that could happen. These new paper ones are certainly reusable if they don’t get wet, but can’t be easily stuffed into a pocket or purse.
My deliveries are always to the porch because it’s usually guys that I don’t want to ask inside. Besides, it would slow them down and mess up their schedules (we specify delivery windows of an hour or two when we order). I do remember when I was a kid that mom always ordered from the nearby (3 blocks away) store and the groceries were delivered to the kitchen counters. Nice. And safe, with 5 kids and a hubby in the vicinity. But that was back in the ’50s.
BTW, which AI did you use for that inquiry? I’m still trying to learn how to do that.
I wonder if Italian bags are more fashionable.
I thought about referring to them as “designer bags.” Somebody somewhere had to design them, right? Or maybe it was just a computer. They appear to be part of a larger system. They are just the right height to sit in a big orange bin which stacks/nests neatly on top of another orange bin. Each bin apparently holds 4 or 5 bags side-by-side. Upon arrival here, the driver, in the back of the truck, loads bags into bins, stacks two nesting bins, and carries 8-10 bags to the porch in one trip. It looks like frozen things are taken from a special freezer section. I’ve thought about trying to mimic the process from porch to kitchen, if I can find the right box.
Ma quanto sei fortunata bella Colorado !! [grin]
The irony is that without the plastic bags I used to get from the grocery store, I had to order some from Amazon. I’m always needing one for some little task, holding the mail when I pick it up, a place to dispose of lint from the dryer, keeping some like items together in the freezer, etc.
(Apologies for this delayed response.)