If only, IF ONLY there was some kind of alternative ...

[ladyjaneinmd]

Workerbee, look at the Litter Genie. My daughter has been using that for years now, and I started 2 years ago. I'm a convert.... No more bags with holes leaking used litter around the house. My Litter Genie can hold a weeks worth of product, for 1.5 cats (her cat uses mine sometimes) I don't smell nasty coming out of it (and it's 2 feet from my bed) since I have a tiny apartment I share with youngest and her husband. They are awesome, I tell you. Not the cheapest thing around, but very effective. I initially bought at my local Petsmart, but I get the refills on Amazon.

I had a small apartment as well, and the litter box has always been in my bedroom. Still is, because my house is small. There's no smell. NO. SMELL. It's all about the litter. I tried all kinds of litter and finally found 2 that don't smell, AND aren't so over-perfumed that they upset my allergies.
It's all about the litter.

[ladyjaneinmd]

I am saving up a stash of plastic grocery bags for that very reason: Cat litter. I need to double up the trash bags I use to clean the boxes and the trash bags are too expensive to use two each time, so I use the grocery bags as reinforcement. I don't know what else I could do - it's not like you can toss used cat litter in a paper bag.

Our plastic bag ban starts next year. I imagine the Oblivious will be stunned to discover it.

I have FOUR little garbage cans in my house that were bought for the reason that they were small enough to use old grocery bags as liners. And my kitty litter bucket as well. I use all of my bags.

They haven't started charging for the bags yet, but I still have a car trunk full of reusable bags that I try to use as often as possible, but that means I run low on the cheap plastic 'garbage can liners'. That's when I get on Freecycle, and pick up enough bags to last me a year. One man's trash really is another man's treasure!

[Pixelated]

Workerbee, look at the Litter Genie. My daughter has been using that for years now, and I started 2 years ago. I'm a convert.... No more bags with holes leaking used litter around the house. My Litter Genie can hold a weeks worth of product, for 1.5 cats (her cat uses mine sometimes) I don't smell nasty coming out of it (and it's 2 feet from my bed) since I have a tiny apartment I share with youngest and her husband. They are awesome, I tell you. Not the cheapest thing around, but very effective. I initially bought at my local Petsmart, but I get the refills on Amazon.

I Googled this and came up with several $400 litterboxes ...

But I think you are in fact referring to the $22 disposal systems, right? I hope, anyway ...

If so, I use something similar, and yes, it's a great idea.

[Minflick]

Workerbee, look at the Litter Genie. My daughter has been using that for years now, and I started 2 years ago. I'm a convert.... No more bags with holes leaking used litter around the house. My Litter Genie can hold a weeks worth of product, for 1.5 cats (her cat uses mine sometimes) I don't smell nasty coming out of it (and it's 2 feet from my bed) since I have a tiny apartment I share with youngest and her husband. They are awesome, I tell you. Not the cheapest thing around, but very effective. I initially bought at my local Petsmart, but I get the refills on Amazon.

[workerbee222]

My reusable bags have to pass my own requirements (stand up and stay open on their own.) The very pretty soft nylon one someone brought me from a trip overseas does work nicely as a bib while eating in the car. Once I started keeping them in the car, after four or five times remembering them (it was really no more than that) it became a habit.
When the disposable ones become extinct, I will have to pay for something to put the used cat litter in. The garbage disposal company WILL pick up, but only if it's double-bagged, in a separate container.

[XCashier]

Our plastic bag ban starts next year. I imagine the Oblivious will be stunned to discover it.

Oh, they will. Our bag ban went into effect around 2013, and even though it was on the TV news and in the papers and everywhere you looked, so many folks were absolutely shocked -- shocked, I tell you! -- that we couldn't give them free plastic bags any more. I was working at the fabric store then, and the stories I could tell! People absolutely freak out over paying ONE NICKEL for a paper bag. One nickel, that could easily fall out of a hole in the person's pocket and they'd never miss it.

And now our city has limited plastic straws. You have to ask for them at the counter; the restaurant or convenience store won't just give it to you with your drink. I feel so bad for the employees, some of them look downright shell-shocked with all the abuse they're taking due to something the city put in place. (We were in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, and some places were offering coffee-style lids for cold drinks, which I think is a very smart idea. Hopefully that will catch on through the rest of the country.)

[MoonCat]

On those occasions where I forget my canvas bags, I re-use the grocery bags for cat litter. Assuming the bags are free of holes after I've used them, of course. The bags from Mart of Wall are so cheap they usually have holes in them before I even get them to the car.

I like my flat-bottom reusable bags. They're much easier to fill, and much easier to organize in the trunk of my car, than plastic bags. They now live in my car so I don't forget them when it's time for groceries.

I am saving up a stash of plastic grocery bags for that very reason: Cat litter. I need to double up the trash bags I use to clean the boxes and the trash bags are too expensive to use two each time, so I use the grocery bags as reinforcement. I don't know what else I could do - it's not like you can toss used cat litter in a paper bag.

Our plastic bag ban starts next year. I imagine the Oblivious will be stunned to discover it.

[Slave to the Phone]

Pixelated I agree and disagree. I think that being faced with the choice to spend a nickle for a bag for a couple of chocolate bars might make someone stop and think, some people won't even notice.

Trader Joe's has wonderful paper bags that cost 50 cents. I buy a couple a year for the cats. Every time I get one, the cashier reminds me that its 50 cents per bag.

A nice neighbor lady and I "trade" freshly grown produce back and forth. She always brings her stuff in the nice paper bags and I mentioned that I returned them to her because they cost her money. She went to the pantry and opened a couple of the 50 or so she had neatly stacked up, found a receipt and realized that yes, she was actually paying money for them.

The cheap, flimsy plastic grocery store bags really just need to be banned.

[Pixelated]

I was on the "express" lane today (technically 12 items or less) and was pleased at the number of people who declined bags at all. Either they only had a few items or their bags/bins were in the car.

Of course, there were also the ones who bought two small items and still wanted a bag, but ... can't win 'em all.

Charging five cents per bag really doesn't make an impact, IMO. Either just ban them, or crank the charge up to $1 per bag -- or more.

[Slave to the Phone]

I used to have a dozen or so reusable cardboard boxes***Some grit stole them out of my shopping cart when I wasn't paying attention.

That is just wrong on so many levels.

We don't have a bag ban here, but I sure do wish we did. I see bags (witches bloomers) in trees all the time. Many people are using reusable bags now, but I do think it will take a bag ban with charge for bags to make a difference.

(As a happy side note, last time I was at the grocery store, I had all of my reusable bags with me, but didn't need them all. At the next register, a man was rearranging his stuff in his bags because he had bought too much and didn't want plastic, so was making his bags heavier. I have a bunch of bags, they are easy to come by, so I gave him one of mine. We both left happier.)

[Pixelated]

At present almost no stores use paper bags anymore. That might change next year IF our current federal government gets back in and IF they keep to their promise to ban single-use plastics.

The little pet place that I shop at has gone to paper bags, with a small sticker on each one with the company's name and logo on them. The shop has a big sign on the window about it being "locally owned and operated" but the name is definitely part of a chain. Not sure if that's a franchise or what you'd call it.

[Food Lady]

and stores charge 5 cents for a paper bag.

I usually get paper bags at the store. I wouldn't mind paying a nickel. That's like $2.50 a year.

[TheWolfEmperor]

Today when you have to pay a nickel or bring your own bag/box there is hardly a wind blown bag to be seen.

Which was a sad day for lonely art film maker living in the house next door, I'll bet.

[earl colby pottinger]

Free bags

I posted it before and I post it again.

When bags were free I use to see them blowing in the wind all the time in Toronto, they would be in the trees, they would be in the drain, they would be on the streets.

People did not care because they were FREE!

Today when you have to pay a nickel or bring your own bag/box there is hardly a wind blown bag to be seen.

People only value what they have to pay for.

[Sparklyturtle]

I've been using homemade cloth bags for years, ever since I had to fish some canned goods out from under an SUV after one of those flimsy plastic bags broke. My area stopped using plastic bags as of June 1, and stores charge 5 cents for a paper bag.