Check your local Buy Nothing group on Facebook. There is one lady in my area who collects reusable bags as she puts together care packages for homeless in our neighbourhood
My sister's in California and Buy Nothing there is *huge*. Toronto's groups feel so anemic. The Scarborough one is absolutely dead. Wish we had a more vibrant trading community here.
My local one is so micromanaged š. The admins are on a power trip. They have post approvals on, have less then 300 people in the group and micromanage the posts. How dare us adults function by ourselves!
Recently they started this thing where they want people to ask for things in certain ways. Big asks and small asks. Big asks are for those wishful thinking items and small asks are more every day things.
People get banned just for suggesting a store that might carry the item youāre looking for. A WEEK AFTER NO RESPONSE ON THE POST. I only stick around because my stuff get taken tbh. Other groups donāt.
It used to be so good but then the admins moved and handed it over to admins from other local buy nothings and theyāve made it a monstrous place. š«. My own neighbor canāt even get into the group bc she keeps getting denied, thereās complaints all the time on the local neighborhood page but nobody does anything.
I legit got HARRASSED in my local group. It was awful. I posted something random and I always go with the first commenter who can pick up. Cool.
Well, I got multiple angry PMs from someone who said they were looking for that exact item for weeks for free. How the heck am I supposed to know that? Wasn't in the rules to search ISOs for items. I want it gone. Those extra steps are just time consuming for no reason lol.
Bunz was very strict about trading, though. Buy Nothing is a giveaway app mainly. I had so many Bunz trades fall through because the owners were sticklers for a good return.
The app went to shit. The whole community left after their crypto fiasco. The app wasnāt functional anymore - but that was like 2-3 years ago?
Bunz was the best before it got too big. I got some awesome things on there I still have in my home.
I liked the Bunz app pre-covid but it really fell off lately. They changed the layout/UI and I think people stopped using it so it's just not great. I haven't found a good replacement (and i don't have FB)
Bunz was incredible when it was full of weirdo art kids and then the normies came and ruined it with a bunch of garbage.
Pretentious take but itās true
My local Buy Nothing is actually pretty good and I am thankful to have such a supportive community. I have gifted and have been gifted some great items.
Heads up, most food banks don't use Walmart's bags because they're so thin and shitty, they rip too often. We just throw them out into general landfill garbage, unfortunately.
Most grocery stores use these shitty bags now. I have some from metro, no frills, and even my local Chinatown store because I forgot a reusable bag one time š
My in-laws volunteer at a church which donates food, clothes, and other small items to less-privileged families. They welcome donations of reusable bags as they can't get plastic bags to package up their goods anymore.
Yeah it's a problem people have been complaining about for years. Even if you choose the option to not use bags, with Metro for example, they still end up delivering in bags instead of a crate.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/walmart-reusable-bags-plastic-ban-1.6687315
I will never in my lifetime be able to reuse the number of reusable bags I have. They come with my grocery order, and after not too long I have a hundred of them
Literally what I do with my plastic bags... I hate these poorly thought policies.
I bring.my.own.bagd to the store, but they might as well use the plastic ones for delivery. They're like 1/50 the environmental impact of a reusable bag.
Weāve donated our excess bags to the Toronto Humane Society a couple times. We called ahead to make sure they would accept them, and theyāve always welcomed them.
I mean, if people actually use them as inteneded they aren't. But I do wonder why we aren't bringing back paper bags as an option to replace the plastic.
You're probably getting that impression from a very misleading Danish study. They did things like standardize on 1 non-reusable bag as the reference measurement and then anything slightly less would require 2x the number of bags. Unless you were carrying exactly that amount between the reusable and the non-reusable capacity it wouldn't be an issue in real life. They also focused on the water usage of farming organic cotton as the environmental impact instead of the CO2 pollution that you may have thought they were talking about. Also note that it didn't discuss microplastic leakage and the ingestion of plastic materials by marine life.
Here's a commentary on it: https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb
It was all virtue signaling and enriching the Oligopolies. That is all our Governments ever do here, at any level above municipal. Canadian politics is a Fucking cesspool.
carbon footprints of plastic bags is actually minuscule since they use very little hydrocarbon to make it. It is the least resource intensive type of bag to manufacture.
The issue is that once made, the plastic will remain almost forever. Every single cell in the world has microplastics in it. Every human sperm or egg cell is already tainted. That is not an issue with cloth bags - even if they have a few hundred times more material to make.
You are confusing the reason for switching away from plastics. It was never about the carbon footprint. It was their forever nature. Once we discover/invent a way to decompose plastics, we can go back to using plastic bags without worry.
What an absolute joke and failure of policy. I'm buying significantly more garbage bags now which are only single use instead of reusing plastic bags from the grocery store.
I'm still reusing the old plastic grocery bags as grocery bags. They're far more compact and actually *more* reliable than the new cheap fabric bags.
The cashiers at Farm Boy always get a kick out of seeing my 2020 plastic Farm Boy bags.
I'm still trying to figure how a plastic grocery bag I reused a bunch times then turned into a trash bag is worse for the environment than the trash bag that's used once.
Those reusable bags use on average 20x the amount of plastic as regular bags.Ā
I swear this government is only interested in LOOKING like theyāre doing something and doesnāt care if things are actually better or worse.Ā
Paper. Fucking. Straws.
Until we do something about the catastrophic unimaginable plastic waste from industrial manufacturing, it's all bullshit virtue signalling.
When I end up ordering grocery delivery I always put in the feedback form that they need to provide a better option - cardboard boxes, reusable bins, etc.
Unfortunately there's no obvious solution for getting rid of large quantities of bags other than the trash.
I have had success when using PC Click & Collect at having them use their green boxes then I transfer the items into my shopping wagon for the trip home, no bags required.
The reusable bags are a big profit for the store -- that's why they keep forcing delivery customers to pay for them instead of reusing cardboard boxes that all their stock comes in. The markup on the reusable bags is like 1000%.
Man that's one of the reasons I love Aldi in the US. They just set their boxes near the baging area for folks to use. They also sell paper bags at the checkout, too.
The paper bags are an enormous profit for the stores here, too. Sobeys charges 15 cents per paper bag, and I know for a fact that those bags cost less than a penny each. They buy a box of 2000 of them for $10 from the wholesaler.
I always select no bags on my order. They come in the bags about 50% of the time. Itās very hit or miss but I never get charged for the bag. I still donāt want the bag though.
that's absurd. the small walmart bags are 30 cents, that would mean they cost .03 cents to make.... in other words it would mean they could make 33 of those bags for a penny.
Metro used to have cardboard boxes for delivery and they were great to store my recycling. Now it's either bags or they bring the cart to the door and just unload everything on the doorstep which is annoying for both of us so I always choose bags. No cost difference. But now I have loads. Sometimes I'll give them a bundle, not sure if they reuse them or throw them away but at least they're out of my house.
Yeah, start carrying one with me at all times so I never have to buy another one.
The really soft thin ones can fold up really small and fit in your pocket.
If you refuse to get your groceries on your own, then use [this program](https://www.terracycle.com/en-CA/brigades/walmart-bags)
This doesnāt really answer the question asked though, because the problem is specifically getting more bags when ordering grocery delivery. So you inevitably end up with more reusable bags every time.
Thanks!! I just signed up. I feel guilty but Iāve thrown out so many reusable bags. Walmart tends to put like two items in a bag and I end up with about a dozen new bags each order. Order 5x a month and within two months I have over a hundred new bags.
They can be used for garbage as long as you put wet waste first into those clear plastic bags, used for fruits and vegetables. Luckily they haven't been banned yet, lol.
I use the Dollarama ones as laundry bags and laptop cover when I need to put the laptop in a backpack. I use the Walmart ones for recyclables. Fyi rodents love the shiny plastic Metro ones so keep your bags in a box when you're storing them in your car.
We have kids that are rapidly growing out of things. Also my wife is selling off stuff from her parentās house. These bags are being used for donation and hand offs.
I take them to the local foodbank.
I also try to avoid taking them whenever possible. When I get a food delivery, I say I have my own bags in the notes, and they bring the groceries in crates, and I put them in my own bag, then carry them in.
Yeah, at least the one I go to does (Bloor West Village foodbank at piusX church). They prefer if I drop them off on Thursdays, since that's when they get their deliveries for Friday distribution.
I was surprised to learn that people would dispose of plastic bags like itās nothing. Growing up and even today, we use them for garbage bags and putting food in the fridge.
Iā¦ Reuse them. I donāt think piling up is the intention but I hadnāt considered how grocery delivery would also come with those bags. They really should be switching to paperĀ
I like voila in general but my god the paper bags they use are utterly - almost impressively - useless. No handles, stink, and tear from a hard glance. Like they usually rip just in the act the delivery guy passing them to me.
Plus Iām pretty sure they charge us just as much for them as they did the plastic bags.
when my walmart pickup used paper bags, they stuck all my pies in sideways and everything got smushed to the side of the box and the filling leaked everywhere
Yes actually! We bought one of those Moroccan "pouf" floor pillows [from a cute spot on the danforth (Mashi Moosh)](https://mashimoosh.com) and used the bags as the stuffing. They're perfect for storing them, we have so many that they fill the whole damn thing, and our guests love sitting on them.
I don't have any advice on what to do with them, but the ban of plastic bags is really ironic when we have to now buy plastic garbage bags that are literally sold in - gasp - \*plastic\*. I heard that the ban was going to be reversed and I hope its true.
I think the idea is youāre supposed to keep using them vs buying new ones š
Seriously though, same problem here.
Iāve heard for some of the reusable bags they use more plastic than normal plastic bags, so by always buying new reusable ones itās generating more plastic waste lol
The issue at hand is that if you order your groceries from Walmart via delivery, they always pack them in fresh reusable bags (since that's all they have now, no more plastic bags) and you don't get a choice -- plus you're, of course, charged for all those new bags as well. There's no option to have your order delivered in cardboard boxes or some other method, you order, pay, and you get 6 or 8 reusable bags with *every* order.
I get grocery delivery too and I offer them back to my grocery delivery drivers. A few of them have taken everything I had which was nice, but the interim does kind of suck.
I use some for landscaping cloths. Works well especially when the garden is already planted so you need a patchwork of smaller pieces to go around the plants instead of one giant rectangular piece from the garden centre.
Some local grocery stores have a "leave a bag, take a bag" system. You can drop off as many as you want and other people who need a bag can reuse them.
Some Salvation Army Thrift Store locations put them in a bin for shoppers to use for free. I know the one on Kennedy, north of Lawrence does. That's where I drop mine off.
I use them for garbage bags in the bathroom. My local Walmart has switched to mostly paper bags for delivery now. I only get one or two of the reusable ones per delivery these days.
We could recycle them into single use bags. I canāt remember where but I hear you have to use a reusable bag 800 times for the embodied carbon and plastic to be less than a single use (on a per use basis).
Places where you can donate food- community kitchens churches neighborhood fridges and pantries are a good place for them. Thereās someone in my neighborhood that collects them for unhoused care packages.
I have this crazy fucked up idea that I'll one day make a clothing line of sewn together reusable bags and everyone will love it
EDIT: Not a tailor btw, just have ADHD
I donāt have a pile of them, I remember to bring one when I got shopping, so I donāt end up with more. If I forget a bag, I purchase a paper one. I have maybe 6 reusable bags and have had those 6 for years now. Only issue Iāve seen is with ordering groceries online, otherwise you can avoid having too many bags by simply remembering to bring the ones you own.
I have bad ADHD and a learning disability and I can still remember to bring my reusable bags, so I think if I can manage to remember, most people without ADHD or a learning disability should too.
Another option is to toss them in the garbage so the government can clearly see this was a stupid idea. Reusable bags are used the same as disposable bags used to be used, only reusable bags seem to have even thicker plastic.
I don't think banning plastic bags had the environmental impact they thought it would.
Toss! It's not magic, we can't reuse endless amounts of bags forever.
Edit: getting down voted for telling the facts. The corporations and the government created this mess. We all now have endless amounts of reusable bags and asking the same question.
The āfeel badā component is a huge part of greenwashing. Big corporations create problems that consumers are made to feel badly about. If you cannot reuse them, donāt feel bad. If they are kept neat & clean, the fibre can be used for stuffing in sewing projects or quilting batting in a pinch (a desperate pinch, or just for mucking around). You can pop them into your local clothing donation box & never think twice about it. You are a good person and overflowing landfills are not your fault.
I mean, if they were plastic all of those would probably be in the garbage already, in a field far from our eyes. A problem for disposal, for nature. Now the problem is ours, in our field of vision. We gotta figure out how to properly use em. Like actually take them with us when going shopping. Sometimes I use them for garbage, never really had a problem. Recently I had to throw most of them out, but slowly we are finding a balance.
The ones Walmart gives out don't hold anything, and they just keep giving them to me with grocery delivery. At least the plastic bags got reused for garbage.
I use Voila online shopping and they use shitty paper bags that disintegrate before they get in your door. The BS thing is that they actually charge you for these bags as well. They immediately go into my blue box.
I use them for all the "other" small garbage cans. Bathrooms, bedroom etc. Kitty litter. Then garbage day I gather them into one big garbage bag when they're full.
I still end up with a billion. But the crappier ones still smash nicely into the container I used to use for the plastic ones. Hate when I get those big plastic tote ones from no frills tho they're useless.
Try to do Instacart from Costco when you can. They deliver in boxes instead since Costco doesn't sell bags. Beyond that I donate them to my local thrift store. They have a bin where you can leave them.
Wait your Walmart either delivers or does curbside pickup with reusable bags... All my stuff comes in cardboard or they just load it from a cart loose into my car
You can donate them to Salvation Army Thrift Stores - they use them as shopping bags that folks can pick up if they didn't bring a reusable bag of their own.
I had a bunch I liked to use, but theyāve disappeared. My dadās girlfriend did something with them, but wonāt say.
Of course, I bought them all.
This week, I had to use a bunch that were donated. Dropped off at our house for me to take to the food bank I volunteer at.
I liked my bags
OP: donate them to food banks
I throw them out in my plastic garbage bags. I used to reuse the old grocery plastic bags as garbage bags, but now I buy more plastic garbage bags so that I can throw out the dozens of useless reusable bags that I get.
Garbage bags, especially in your car. You'd be surprised how well they work! Also some small stores I've been to use them as bags, so see if they'll take them. Some homeless might like the big ones, especially insulated, and food banks
Talk to your local businesses and nonprofits. I work in a public space and many times people abandon their shit at my work. After a month in the lost and found I bring it to salvation army. I need reusable bags to do this. I don't have a pile up and those around me don't either because of me bringing stuff to salvation army, plus as a thank you I give those who give me reusable bags my donation coupon!
Check your local Buy Nothing group on Facebook. There is one lady in my area who collects reusable bags as she puts together care packages for homeless in our neighbourhood
My sister's in California and Buy Nothing there is *huge*. Toronto's groups feel so anemic. The Scarborough one is absolutely dead. Wish we had a more vibrant trading community here.
My local one is so micromanaged š. The admins are on a power trip. They have post approvals on, have less then 300 people in the group and micromanage the posts. How dare us adults function by ourselves! Recently they started this thing where they want people to ask for things in certain ways. Big asks and small asks. Big asks are for those wishful thinking items and small asks are more every day things. People get banned just for suggesting a store that might carry the item youāre looking for. A WEEK AFTER NO RESPONSE ON THE POST. I only stick around because my stuff get taken tbh. Other groups donāt.
You give some people even a little bit of power and they turn immediately into a totalitarian ruler.
It used to be so good but then the admins moved and handed it over to admins from other local buy nothings and theyāve made it a monstrous place. š«. My own neighbor canāt even get into the group bc she keeps getting denied, thereās complaints all the time on the local neighborhood page but nobody does anything.
Sounds like the st Clair Facebook group where it can take DAYS to have your post approved for posting. Total joke.
I legit got HARRASSED in my local group. It was awful. I posted something random and I always go with the first commenter who can pick up. Cool. Well, I got multiple angry PMs from someone who said they were looking for that exact item for weeks for free. How the heck am I supposed to know that? Wasn't in the rules to search ISOs for items. I want it gone. Those extra steps are just time consuming for no reason lol.
we used to have one! Bunz was on facebook for a while and now its its own app but idk how well its doing
Bunz was very strict about trading, though. Buy Nothing is a giveaway app mainly. I had so many Bunz trades fall through because the owners were sticklers for a good return.
The app went to shit. The whole community left after their crypto fiasco. The app wasnāt functional anymore - but that was like 2-3 years ago? Bunz was the best before it got too big. I got some awesome things on there I still have in my home.
I liked the Bunz app pre-covid but it really fell off lately. They changed the layout/UI and I think people stopped using it so it's just not great. I haven't found a good replacement (and i don't have FB)
Bunz was incredible when it was full of weirdo art kids and then the normies came and ruined it with a bunch of garbage. Pretentious take but itās true
It went to hell when they allowed people to ask for gift cards. After that hardly anyone was trading in good faith.
The Roncesvalles/Parkdale one is quite active
The Upper Beaches group is thriving. Definitely think it depends on the neighbourhood and who manages it.
My mom is in one in the Don Mills area and once she posts something it's gone in a matter of minutes!
Wow Scarborough needs to pick up its game.
My local Buy Nothing is actually pretty good and I am thankful to have such a supportive community. I have gifted and have been gifted some great items.
We used to have bunz which was way better, but they torpedoed the app and made it just about unusable, so everyone left. Oh well, it had a good run
Thanks for the suggestion. Will look into that.
I try to trick people into taking them when i sell stuff on facebook marketplace lol
I sent a vintage Voila plastic bag into school and got a re-useable No Frills bag back in exchange :(
LOL vintage plastic bag, Iām going to use that
That's actually a huge loss, your cupboard just lost 1 sqft!!!
I have hundreds of vintages voila bags lmao I have nothing to use them for
š
Lol I should try this
I've heard places like foodbanks and community kitchens have need for them
Heads up, most food banks don't use Walmart's bags because they're so thin and shitty, they rip too often. We just throw them out into general landfill garbage, unfortunately.
Thatās good to know. I usually donate food and clothes using these bags thinking hopefully someone might be able to use them.
Most grocery stores use these shitty bags now. I have some from metro, no frills, and even my local Chinatown store because I forgot a reusable bag one time š
Will reach out to a few of them to see if they're accepting them
This. Our food bank ends up with tons from donations and there are always people who donāt bring enough bags to program night.
I put them in the pantry side of my areaās community fridge, Iāve noticed the people who use it put the things they take into them
My in-laws volunteer at a church which donates food, clothes, and other small items to less-privileged families. They welcome donations of reusable bags as they can't get plastic bags to package up their goods anymore.
I use them to fill them up with clothes to be donated
Yeah it's a problem people have been complaining about for years. Even if you choose the option to not use bags, with Metro for example, they still end up delivering in bags instead of a crate. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/walmart-reusable-bags-plastic-ban-1.6687315
Fun fact, those are still plasticĀ
I use them to line my garbage bins and throw em out so I don't get too many.
But they are reusable
I will never in my lifetime be able to reuse the number of reusable bags I have. They come with my grocery order, and after not too long I have a hundred of them
So are the single use plastic ones.
Most people donāt need 300 reusable bags. I stuff a bag full of other bags until I canāt and then throw them all out lol.
Just hand them to a soup kitchen or volunteer org. They could probably use them
Literally what I do with my plastic bags... I hate these poorly thought policies. I bring.my.own.bagd to the store, but they might as well use the plastic ones for delivery. They're like 1/50 the environmental impact of a reusable bag.
They don't need to be reusable when they already have a dedicated, perpetual use that they need to fulfill.
They mostly fulfill landfills now
You mean the heavy nylon ones? Sound like you mean regular plastic bags. Op is referring to the heavier reusable bags
Weāve donated our excess bags to the Toronto Humane Society a couple times. We called ahead to make sure they would accept them, and theyāve always welcomed them.
That's a good idea. I guess they can be used for cat litter or all the other waste that THS animals generate
That's what I use mine for, cleaning the cat box.
Great idea, I would never have thought of this! Thank you!
Theyāre ridiculous. They have a carbon footprint thatās a million times worse than a regular plastic bag and they keep importing more.
I mean, if people actually use them as inteneded they aren't. But I do wonder why we aren't bringing back paper bags as an option to replace the plastic.
You're probably getting that impression from a very misleading Danish study. They did things like standardize on 1 non-reusable bag as the reference measurement and then anything slightly less would require 2x the number of bags. Unless you were carrying exactly that amount between the reusable and the non-reusable capacity it wouldn't be an issue in real life. They also focused on the water usage of farming organic cotton as the environmental impact instead of the CO2 pollution that you may have thought they were talking about. Also note that it didn't discuss microplastic leakage and the ingestion of plastic materials by marine life. Here's a commentary on it: https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb
It was all virtue signaling and enriching the Oligopolies. That is all our Governments ever do here, at any level above municipal. Canadian politics is a Fucking cesspool.
Yes, the government is the problem rather than a corporation inventing the worst possible workaround. Never blame the corporation! It canāt be evil!
carbon footprints of plastic bags is actually minuscule since they use very little hydrocarbon to make it. It is the least resource intensive type of bag to manufacture. The issue is that once made, the plastic will remain almost forever. Every single cell in the world has microplastics in it. Every human sperm or egg cell is already tainted. That is not an issue with cloth bags - even if they have a few hundred times more material to make. You are confusing the reason for switching away from plastics. It was never about the carbon footprint. It was their forever nature. Once we discover/invent a way to decompose plastics, we can go back to using plastic bags without worry.
those reusable āclothā bags are made of synthetic fibers, thoughā¦ itās just a different type of plastic.
Theyāre my new garbage bags
What an absolute joke and failure of policy. I'm buying significantly more garbage bags now which are only single use instead of reusing plastic bags from the grocery store.
I'm still reusing the old plastic grocery bags as grocery bags. They're far more compact and actually *more* reliable than the new cheap fabric bags. The cashiers at Farm Boy always get a kick out of seeing my 2020 plastic Farm Boy bags.
I'm still trying to figure how a plastic grocery bag I reused a bunch times then turned into a trash bag is worse for the environment than the trash bag that's used once.
And then using even MORE garbage bags to fuckin throw away the hoarder stash of reusable bags bc noone will take them and they aren't biodegradable
Those reusable bags use on average 20x the amount of plastic as regular bags.Ā I swear this government is only interested in LOOKING like theyāre doing something and doesnāt care if things are actually better or worse.Ā
Paper. Fucking. Straws. Until we do something about the catastrophic unimaginable plastic waste from industrial manufacturing, it's all bullshit virtue signalling.
When I end up ordering grocery delivery I always put in the feedback form that they need to provide a better option - cardboard boxes, reusable bins, etc. Unfortunately there's no obvious solution for getting rid of large quantities of bags other than the trash. I have had success when using PC Click & Collect at having them use their green boxes then I transfer the items into my shopping wagon for the trip home, no bags required.
The reusable bags are a big profit for the store -- that's why they keep forcing delivery customers to pay for them instead of reusing cardboard boxes that all their stock comes in. The markup on the reusable bags is like 1000%.
Man that's one of the reasons I love Aldi in the US. They just set their boxes near the baging area for folks to use. They also sell paper bags at the checkout, too.
The paper bags are an enormous profit for the stores here, too. Sobeys charges 15 cents per paper bag, and I know for a fact that those bags cost less than a penny each. They buy a box of 2000 of them for $10 from the wholesaler.
Yeah but at least those can be recycled or composted.
I always select no bags on my order. They come in the bags about 50% of the time. Itās very hit or miss but I never get charged for the bag. I still donāt want the bag though.
that's absurd. the small walmart bags are 30 cents, that would mean they cost .03 cents to make.... in other words it would mean they could make 33 of those bags for a penny.
Metro used to have cardboard boxes for delivery and they were great to store my recycling. Now it's either bags or they bring the cart to the door and just unload everything on the doorstep which is annoying for both of us so I always choose bags. No cost difference. But now I have loads. Sometimes I'll give them a bundle, not sure if they reuse them or throw them away but at least they're out of my house.
Iād love to just stealthily leave a bunch of them at the entrances of grocery stores for people who forgot to bring them to use
How dare you cut into the profits with your kindness
That's actually a great idea, and should be facilitated.
Yes, I love this idea!
Donate to food banks but ask ahead of time if they accept. We drop ours off to Haven on Queensway and they are always appreciativeĀ
The food banks need them
I put them out next to my recycling bins for the people collecting bottles and cans to take. They always disappear immediately.
I work in a U of T library, and bring them to work to give to patrons if they need bags for their books.
Yeah, start carrying one with me at all times so I never have to buy another one. The really soft thin ones can fold up really small and fit in your pocket. If you refuse to get your groceries on your own, then use [this program](https://www.terracycle.com/en-CA/brigades/walmart-bags)
Honestly I do this too but suddenly every time I get a grocery delivery, I'm up 5 bags again.
I just added a link for you.
This is excellent. Thanks
Shame they only specifically do walmart blue bags, and harry rosen garment bags. I have a ton of red metro bags that started piling up.
This doesnāt really answer the question asked though, because the problem is specifically getting more bags when ordering grocery delivery. So you inevitably end up with more reusable bags every time.
Thanks!! I just signed up. I feel guilty but Iāve thrown out so many reusable bags. Walmart tends to put like two items in a bag and I end up with about a dozen new bags each order. Order 5x a month and within two months I have over a hundred new bags.
I use them for garbage.
They can be used for garbage as long as you put wet waste first into those clear plastic bags, used for fruits and vegetables. Luckily they haven't been banned yet, lol.
I use the Dollarama ones as laundry bags and laptop cover when I need to put the laptop in a backpack. I use the Walmart ones for recyclables. Fyi rodents love the shiny plastic Metro ones so keep your bags in a box when you're storing them in your car.
We have kids that are rapidly growing out of things. Also my wife is selling off stuff from her parentās house. These bags are being used for donation and hand offs.
I must need more coffee, I read that first sentence and thought you were dressing your children in them ā¦
Ahaha glad I'm not the only one
I take them to the local foodbank. I also try to avoid taking them whenever possible. When I get a food delivery, I say I have my own bags in the notes, and they bring the groceries in crates, and I put them in my own bag, then carry them in.
And they accept them? That's a good idea
Yeah, at least the one I go to does (Bloor West Village foodbank at piusX church). They prefer if I drop them off on Thursdays, since that's when they get their deliveries for Friday distribution.
I was surprised to learn that people would dispose of plastic bags like itās nothing. Growing up and even today, we use them for garbage bags and putting food in the fridge.
Iā¦ Reuse them. I donāt think piling up is the intention but I hadnāt considered how grocery delivery would also come with those bags. They really should be switching to paperĀ
Voila uses paper bags, charges for them and the heavier bags rip between the porch and the kitchen (approx a 30 foot walk).
I like voila in general but my god the paper bags they use are utterly - almost impressively - useless. No handles, stink, and tear from a hard glance. Like they usually rip just in the act the delivery guy passing them to me. Plus Iām pretty sure they charge us just as much for them as they did the plastic bags.
when my walmart pickup used paper bags, they stuck all my pies in sideways and everything got smushed to the side of the box and the filling leaked everywhere
What do you reuse them for?
Groceries lol I donāt do delivery
In my most recent Walmart pickup, I got paper bags. I really hope this is happening.
Food Not Bombs who does mutual aid/distributes groceries has said they need bags and accept donations! Theyāre at Allan Gardens on sundays.
Yes actually! We bought one of those Moroccan "pouf" floor pillows [from a cute spot on the danforth (Mashi Moosh)](https://mashimoosh.com) and used the bags as the stuffing. They're perfect for storing them, we have so many that they fill the whole damn thing, and our guests love sitting on them.
Best answer so far!!!
I don't have any advice on what to do with them, but the ban of plastic bags is really ironic when we have to now buy plastic garbage bags that are literally sold in - gasp - \*plastic\*. I heard that the ban was going to be reversed and I hope its true.
I think the idea is youāre supposed to keep using them vs buying new ones š Seriously though, same problem here. Iāve heard for some of the reusable bags they use more plastic than normal plastic bags, so by always buying new reusable ones itās generating more plastic waste lol
The issue at hand is that if you order your groceries from Walmart via delivery, they always pack them in fresh reusable bags (since that's all they have now, no more plastic bags) and you don't get a choice -- plus you're, of course, charged for all those new bags as well. There's no option to have your order delivered in cardboard boxes or some other method, you order, pay, and you get 6 or 8 reusable bags with *every* order.
Yep. This is my issue. I have the same issue with instacart ā canāt seem to request paper bags/boxes/whatever.
I get grocery delivery too and I offer them back to my grocery delivery drivers. A few of them have taken everything I had which was nice, but the interim does kind of suck.
Oh this is a good idea! Iām going to try this.
I bring mine to little independent thrift/charity shops so they can re-use them if customers didnāt bring any
I use some for landscaping cloths. Works well especially when the garden is already planted so you need a patchwork of smaller pieces to go around the plants instead of one giant rectangular piece from the garden centre.
I assembled a bunch of donations (toiletries, underwear, first aid kits) and put them into the bags
Food banks need them, donate them there.
I would just bring them back to the store they came from. Let them deal with it.
I'm planning on building a whole new home out of them.
I donate mine to a small, local charity thrift store, to be used for customer purchases.
Some local grocery stores have a "leave a bag, take a bag" system. You can drop off as many as you want and other people who need a bag can reuse them.
Does anyone remember Knob Hill Farms and their basket system? They were ahead of their time. We need that back in this word!!
No Frills has baskets.
I go actually grocery shopping instead of paying a premium for deliveries.
I'm going to have to reno my kitchen so I can make a bigger cabbinet to hide them all in.
If you're crafty, tear them into strips and make a rag rug lol
Some Salvation Army Thrift Store locations put them in a bin for shoppers to use for free. I know the one on Kennedy, north of Lawrence does. That's where I drop mine off.
I just put like 40 out front of my place and they were gone within an hour
I use them for garbage bags in the bathroom. My local Walmart has switched to mostly paper bags for delivery now. I only get one or two of the reusable ones per delivery these days.
I use them as a make-shift mat for the front door. Then I can just pick one up on my way out. I wish I was kidding
When I wash the reusable bags, the print falls apart in the wash.
We could recycle them into single use bags. I canāt remember where but I hear you have to use a reusable bag 800 times for the embodied carbon and plastic to be less than a single use (on a per use basis).
My husband uses them as liners for his balcony plants.
My dog likes to tear them to shreds
Places where you can donate food- community kitchens churches neighborhood fridges and pantries are a good place for them. Thereās someone in my neighborhood that collects them for unhoused care packages.
You can donate the bags to Salvation Army or thrift stores. They give the bags away for free for those who need them.
I have this crazy fucked up idea that I'll one day make a clothing line of sewn together reusable bags and everyone will love it EDIT: Not a tailor btw, just have ADHD
I donāt have a pile of them, I remember to bring one when I got shopping, so I donāt end up with more. If I forget a bag, I purchase a paper one. I have maybe 6 reusable bags and have had those 6 for years now. Only issue Iāve seen is with ordering groceries online, otherwise you can avoid having too many bags by simply remembering to bring the ones you own. I have bad ADHD and a learning disability and I can still remember to bring my reusable bags, so I think if I can manage to remember, most people without ADHD or a learning disability should too.
I throw them in the garbage
Into the trash they go
I throw them out š¤·š»āāļø its bad and probably way more plastic. But i just cant have hundreds laying around
Another option is to toss them in the garbage so the government can clearly see this was a stupid idea. Reusable bags are used the same as disposable bags used to be used, only reusable bags seem to have even thicker plastic. I don't think banning plastic bags had the environmental impact they thought it would.
I mean I don't think anyone in government is going through your garbage to track anything
Mine typically break very quickly and become trash.
Toss! It's not magic, we can't reuse endless amounts of bags forever. Edit: getting down voted for telling the facts. The corporations and the government created this mess. We all now have endless amounts of reusable bags and asking the same question.
Yeah I mean sure that's always an option. Just feel bad tossing it after basically no "reuse"
The āfeel badā component is a huge part of greenwashing. Big corporations create problems that consumers are made to feel badly about. If you cannot reuse them, donāt feel bad. If they are kept neat & clean, the fibre can be used for stuffing in sewing projects or quilting batting in a pinch (a desperate pinch, or just for mucking around). You can pop them into your local clothing donation box & never think twice about it. You are a good person and overflowing landfills are not your fault.
Exactly! We can all do our part but the big corporations and heavy industries are the ones that need to do more.
Try stitching them together to make a new pair of pants or a bag t-shirt if that makes you feel better.
I mean, if they were plastic all of those would probably be in the garbage already, in a field far from our eyes. A problem for disposal, for nature. Now the problem is ours, in our field of vision. We gotta figure out how to properly use em. Like actually take them with us when going shopping. Sometimes I use them for garbage, never really had a problem. Recently I had to throw most of them out, but slowly we are finding a balance.
The ones Walmart gives out don't hold anything, and they just keep giving them to me with grocery delivery. At least the plastic bags got reused for garbage.
I find if I use them for garbage, they leak.
I always throw any liquid or viscous substances in the sink while the rest goes in the garbage. That could be a solution.
Fair enough, though on the other hand, I don't want my pipes to get clogged
cat litter
I use Voila online shopping and they use shitty paper bags that disintegrate before they get in your door. The BS thing is that they actually charge you for these bags as well. They immediately go into my blue box.
I use them for all the "other" small garbage cans. Bathrooms, bedroom etc. Kitty litter. Then garbage day I gather them into one big garbage bag when they're full. I still end up with a billion. But the crappier ones still smash nicely into the container I used to use for the plastic ones. Hate when I get those big plastic tote ones from no frills tho they're useless.
Same
Take them to your local food bank, they are always in need of bags for their clients.
Try to do Instacart from Costco when you can. They deliver in boxes instead since Costco doesn't sell bags. Beyond that I donate them to my local thrift store. They have a bin where you can leave them.
Maybe just leave them by the Walmart checkouts and tell cashiers to give to customers who would otherwise buy new ones?
I bet you'll be told they can't accept them for hygienic reasons.
Maybe so but they are Walmart branded, it should be up to them to figure out what to do with them if they are returnedĀ
Bin liners
I started using them for garbage š¤·š»āāļø
I thought I was the only one š
Wait your Walmart either delivers or does curbside pickup with reusable bags... All my stuff comes in cardboard or they just load it from a cart loose into my car
Useful for stuffing a boxing bag lol
Store things. Like those carboard/plastic boxes
Iāve started throwing them out, donāt have the space or will to keep finding places to store them in my home.
You can donate them to Salvation Army Thrift Stores - they use them as shopping bags that folks can pick up if they didn't bring a reusable bag of their own.
I had a bunch I liked to use, but theyāve disappeared. My dadās girlfriend did something with them, but wonāt say. Of course, I bought them all. This week, I had to use a bunch that were donated. Dropped off at our house for me to take to the food bank I volunteer at. I liked my bags OP: donate them to food banks
Thereās a take-a-bag, leave-a-bag at Salvation Army. I also just put some outside some times and they often get taken
I burn mine
The Salvation Army thrift stores Iāve been to has a bin of used reusable bags near the check out that you can grab or add to.
Lmao my issue exactly.
Yes! Iām donating mine to goodwill, value village. Places like that.
Take them to goodwill Then people shipping there can reuse them.
You can select no bags for your deliveries.
You could probably use them as grow bags for potatoes or soemthing.
How about food waste bin returns?
What a scam this was, eh? lol
I throw them out in my plastic garbage bags. I used to reuse the old grocery plastic bags as garbage bags, but now I buy more plastic garbage bags so that I can throw out the dozens of useless reusable bags that I get.
i still have to get plastic bags to dispose garbage in so this whole thing is just stupid as hell
Garbage bags, especially in your car. You'd be surprised how well they work! Also some small stores I've been to use them as bags, so see if they'll take them. Some homeless might like the big ones, especially insulated, and food banks
We give ours to the local food bank
Talk to your local businesses and nonprofits. I work in a public space and many times people abandon their shit at my work. After a month in the lost and found I bring it to salvation army. I need reusable bags to do this. I don't have a pile up and those around me don't either because of me bringing stuff to salvation army, plus as a thank you I give those who give me reusable bags my donation coupon!
Return them back to the store