Saturday, October 20, 2012

Why do paper grocery bags exist?

Picture a paper grocery bag:



They're terribly inconvenient, aren't they?

You can carry a maximum of two, and you'd have to put them down every time you want to do up your coat, open a door, swipe your metropass, answer your phone, or get your keys out of your purse.  If a bottle leaks or it's rainy or snowy out, a paper bag disintegrates. (And, again, if you have more than one bag, you don't have the option of carrying an umbrella.)  It's extremely difficult to do another errand after groceries, because you'd have to put down your bags to select something off a store shelf or reach for your wallet.  Because you're limited to two bags, the likelihood of your peaches getting squished increases.

And yet, they persist.  Someone invented them, someone approved the idea, and the idea is common enough that if you do a google image search for "groceries", a good number of the images are paper bags so brimming full that, in real life, some of your produce would end up on the subway floor.

The first day after paper bags displaced plastic at my the LCBO, I wasn't able to leave the store with my purchase.  I was already carrying several shopping bags which were too full for me to add bottles.  The LCBO cashier handed me my purchase in a paper bag, and I couldn't carry it along with all my other shopping.  There just wasn't room in my hands and arms.  I had to have them do a return on my purchase and give me my money back, because it wasn't physically possible for me to get my purchase home that day.

And yet, enough people think these things are a reasonable replacement for plastic bags that they got all the way through whatever approval process the LCBO has.  And now people are acting as though they're reasonable replacements for all plastic bags when the short-sighted, ill-conceived city-wide ban on plastic bags goes into effect.  (The most frustrating thing was when I wrote to elected representatives encouraging them to vote against the ban and telling them about my idea of using biodegradable plastic bags, which will make environmentally optimal behaviour effortless for citizens, and they wrote back "reassuring" me that paper bags would still be permitted.)

What are these people doing that they find paper useful for anything other than ripening fruit?

4 comments:

laura k said...

They were the standard in a time when things were not often made of plastic.

They are definitely less convenient than plastic, unless you drive to your shopping. If you drive, they are equal to plastic, with the added advantage that they are degrade with the organic waste.

If you're walking, they're less than useless - they're downright awful.

In suburban/car life, I have no idea why they were ever given up. I guess at some point paper became more expensive than plastic.

CQ said...

Buying more booze than one can carry away. Good times, lol. Just wait til a future Christmas Shopping Season.

Anonymous said...

Environmentally-conscious people who drive their cars everywhere find paper bags convenient.

impudent strumpet said...

It seems like paper would still be inconvenient when it comes time to unload the car. You can pick up a maximum of two, carry them to the front door, put them down, unlock the door, pick them, put them inside. Then close the door, go back to the car, get two more, carry them to the door, put them down, open the door, put them inside, etc. etc. unless you're willing to leave your door wide open.