Paper bags
Submitted by Beyerlein Household on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 1:35pm
In response to the previous entry...
"It's the only reason I don't use reusable bags at the grocery stores…I need paper bags to recycle my paper."
I too use paper bags for my recycled paper, but can't stand the thought of NOT using reusable bags at the grocery store. I've been known to ask my friends and co-workers for their excess paper bags (many people have more than they can use) so I can use them for paper recycling. You could also ask at freecycle.com for extra paper bags. We also sometimes put our paper in boxes that we want to get rid of anyway. This is nice because it holds so much more than a bag! Hope this helps!
The paper bag dilemma
Beyerlein's, you make some great suggestions! It is quite the dilemma for green folks in our area, because although many do not want to take brown paper grocery bags at the store, they are the prefered method for recycling pick-up of paper at your households.
What I think is this: if the alternative of tying the paper in a bundle with string is too strenuous for a household to the point where they may toss their paper in the garbage, then the use of the grocery bags must be an acceptable sacrifice to make
I don't love the idea of taking the brown paper grocery bags either, but since they are recyclable and allow for much more material to be recycled, I feel justified in using them.
I suppose the bigger picture goal should be to reduce how much paper is getting used and disposed of anyway. That way, the recycling issue becomes less of a burden when there is less paper to deal with.
Thanks for the insights!
Dustin Nolan
1 more paper bag comment
I'd like to remind people to really FILL that bag before setting it out as well. I cringed last week when I did a shopping trip without my cloth bags in order to get some paper bags. We had even gone through the ones we acquired from others, as we read a lot of newspapers at our house. BUT, the bags we set out are crammed as full as possible. We never set out a half-full bag just to get the recycling out of the house.