Reusable Bags: Are We Now Drowning in Something Worse than Single Use Bags?

Bags, bags, reusable bags everywhere . . .

Years ago, in Canada, various retailers and businesses started to give out or sell reusable bags to try to reduce how many plastic bags or "single use" bags were produced and ultimately thrown away. This was supposed to be good for the environment.

A bag of bags.

I can remember as a child having to take reusable bags to the grocery stores and various food retailers in Europe when we were there on vacation (this was decades ago). We’re slow to catch on here and the way we’ve done it has still perhaps not worked quite the way it did in Europe. Here, while some people are religious about using reusable bags, others supplement, and some refuse or always forget their reusable bags.

In Victoria, British Columbia, Canada where I live, certain stores have started to charge for bags (or offer “discounts" per reusable bag brought to the store with you) or have banned plastic bags completely. The municipality of Victoria is currently debating what should be done about plastic bags or single use bags from stores.

I use a reusable bag to save plastic "single use" bags so that I can reuse them.

This is complicated, while reusable bags can be very good if they are of good quality so that they don’t break soon after purchase of being gifted to the user. Unfortunately, there are a lot of reusable bags that I’ve had over the years that break, rip, tear, or become somehow unusable very quickly. The problem with this is that it takes much more resources to produce these reusable bags than it does to produce a thin plastic bag. Also, the materials that they’re often made out of are plastic, just like plastic bags, but they are thicker and even worse for the environment. If they have mixed materials, fabric plus plastic, then good luck finding somewhere to recycle them when they break. Whereas, plastic grocery bags can be returned to the grocery store for recycling.

But there's just so many reusable bags and this isn't even my entire "collection" . . .

I order online from Thrifty Foods from time to time and have my groceries delivered (with a baby in the house, grocery shopping is an extra challenge that I don’t need). Because I can’t use my reusable bags since they are delivering to my house, they use paper bags (since they banned plastic bags). While this might be somewhat good, it’s a lot of paper, since they can’t fill a lot of bags as full as a stronger plastic bag could be filled. I reuse these paper bags to put my compost in (before putting it in my compost bin, because the City of Victoria, unlike other municipalities requires compost to be in either a compostable or a paper bag before it goes in your own bin- a waste for sure since it’s all being chucked in the same big truck).

And I use a reusable bag to keep  some of my many, many paper bags so that I can reuse them.

My favourite reusable bag my husband and I bought in Amsterdam the summer before last. We were at a grocery store and realized we had no bag to put our purchases in. They don’t give out bags there so it was either try to carry everything in our arms or buy one. We looked at the beautiful canvas bags and wondered how much they could possibly cost. They were sturdy, a good size for carrying a small shop, and comfortable to wear over the shoulder or carry in the hand. We could not believe it when the cashier told us the price, about $4.00 Canadian. A bag like that here would probably costs at least four times that. No doubt their good quality reusable bags are priced to encourage people to use them (and reuse them) and for less waste to occur over time. Plus, canvas is biodegradable, unlike plastic which most of our reusable bags seem to be made from here. Also, the bag became dirty from travelling for about a month and when we arrived home I was able to pop it into the washing machine to clean it easily. Good luck doing this with one of those mixed plastic and fabric numbers.

My favourite reusable bag is from Amsterdam.

I always reused plastic bags that I was given at stores and I still do. They are handy for carrying other items, for garbage cans around the house, for cleaning out the kitty litter box, etc.. I am still not convinced that the mountain of reusable bags being produced is going to save the world. They are choking out thrift shops and eating up all of our closet and trunk space. I suggest that if we are going to move towards reusable bags in the long term that they be more like our beautiful, high quality, biodegradable, and cheap Dutch canvas bag.

Let's make more reusable bags like this sturdy and cheap canvas bag from The Netherlands.

Forever 21's Disposable Leggings

Technically, this is not overpackaging, but since it adds to the planet's garbage situation, I'm putting it in my blog. When I was shopping in Vancouver during Boxing Week, I purchased a few pairs of Forever 21 leggings. They were not on sale, but cheap ($6.90 plus tax each in Canadian dollars). I didn't expect them to be stellar, but just kind of basic, something that would last me a while. The last two pairs I had from Forever 21 weren't fantastic, but they lasted a while and for the price were not that bad.

I wore one of the new pairs of leggings the next day while I was out shopping. Not only was I disappointed that the leggings kept falling down because their waistband elastic was crappy, but towards the end of the day, I looked down and on one leg, there was a line of tiny holes all the way up the seam of the leggings! One wear and they were ruined.

I took them into Forever 21 the next day to return them, as they were clearly defective. I mean the sign in the store didn't say "disposable leggings" or "wear them once then throw them out- never do laundry again." I brought the other two pairs of leggings with me as I figured that they would be just as defective and disappointing and I was not willing to take a chance on them.

The store clerk told me point blank that they don't do returns at Forever 21, so I could have a store credit. Excuse me?! So, Forever 21 sells defective merchandise and then you're expected to buy something else shitty from them with a store credit? I don't think so. I pointed out to the clerk that since the leggings were defective and not regular merchandise, any store policies would not apply (read the Sale of Goods Act, people!). She looked surprised, as if no one had ever demanded a full refund before. She told me that sometimes the leggings get holes in them when you pull them up. So how exactly are you supposed get leggings on if you don't pull them up, telekinesis? Since I was not buying this bullshit, she went to find her manager.

My husband and I were standing there for a while, during which time, I snapped a hasty picture of the ruined single use leggings. It's not the greatest picture, but does show some of the many holes along the seam of one leg.

This is just a small sampling of the holes that went all the way down the seam of my right leg, but not my left.

She returned and said she would give me a refund in cash, since they had no way of putting the sum back onto my credit card (yeah, so I guess everyone else with this defective disposable shit just accepts the store credit?). I took the cash and refused her offer to find something else in this temple of garbage. No thank you.

So, if you ever end up with defective merchandise, take it back and make companies produce better items that won't end up in the landfill immediately. Demand your money back. Defective merchandise is not the same as regular merchandise and can never be treated the same under store policies if they have restrictive return policies. If we don't speak up as consumers, companies are just going to continue producing and selling us garbage.

Single use leggings are a waste and I refuse to let companies like Forever 21 get away with this.