Waxed paper or bioplastic bags are alternatives.
Since non reusable plastic bags are banned in France my butcher use that.
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One of the small number of instances where a small plastic bag wrapped around the package makes good sense. I eschewed this myself and did indeed get chicken juice all through my bag. I filled up my sink and washed all the fruit in hot soapy water. No-one got sick so it must have worked!
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Shit, just skip bags altogether as long as you’re not walking home. Put the items directly into the car or bike pannier and transfer to a box for bringing inside.
You can get everything in fewer trips. It helps the checker’s stats since they can skip bagging.
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They’re no there to save your time, but to save paid labor time. It’s shadow work.
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Baby steps:
- Ban bags.
- Everyone brings their own.
It is almost like with money. If you haven’t got some on you, you can’t get the goods from the seller. Oh, BTW, autocorrect suggested an emoji for money.
Just look at it: 
Just FTR:
Today on NATIONAL news in Germany.
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I do wonder if this is a regressive tax. Are disadvantaged communities inclined to use reusable bags at the same level? Are they impacted more because they buy groceries in smaller amounts, meaning more bag charges overall? Has anyone studied this?
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Personally, I find they help to guarantee at least one job.
I did once manage to use a self-checkout without needing an assistant and the manager to come coax the machine back into function.
I’m sure they will get better though.
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Here in the UK we have a ban on plastic bags given by large supermarkets, but smaller supermarkets - like my local corner shop - can give out plastic bags willy-nilly. Meanwhile, the Co-Operative Society (which is one of the larger supermarkets) - look up Rochdale Pioneers who started it - supplies biodegradeable plastic bags which can be used for recycling bins. Routinely we go there and buy fifty at a time. I carry two cotton bags with me in my coat pockets. I’ve seen allegations that cotton bags are worse for the environment than the plastic ones. I don’t quite believe it. Anybody got any factual information about that?
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I’ve always thought this weird. In UK and France, everyone bags their own goods after the cashier has scanned them. Personally, I would not trust a third party to bag my goods. I’d end up with two litres of milk on top of a punnet of strawberries, I expect. Why do USanians expect a cashier - or someone else - to bag ther goods for them? I guess it started when supermarkets started and wages were cheap and the stores thought it added value - the facade of personal service which had just been removed by making shoppers take their own stuff off the shelves and lug it around a store. But that’s just speculation. Either way, it seems weird to those of us over here.
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Somebody needs to make Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium a thing.
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There was an earlier BB post about it and it only factors in the up front cost of producing the bag and does not factor the damage to the environment post production like all the microplastic debris in our environment.
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Because people will bitch and moan about it. Austin did just as much and charged for nicer reusable bags, people complained like no other and now i see that some stores are using the craptastic one use plastic bags again. People want to appear like they give a shit about important issues but the second it inconveniences them they quickly stop caring.
Personally i don’t mind doing away with the plastic bags for shopping, and if i forget to take them with me i also don’t mind just lugging my stuff to the car without the bags.
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They’re quite reusable. I reuse them all the time.
Store. Small trash bin liners. Hold things on a walk. Packing when I travel - shoes and laundry. Lunch.
I never buy the small bin liners.
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That’s normal in Minnesota. You have to bag your own groceries, but no matter how many locals I asked, no one could explain why.
There may be other states where this is normal. It’s not ‘normal’ in Colorado, but I do bag my own stuff when there are more cashiers than baggers. No one bats an eye.
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Which kind of bears out my underlying thesis. You asked why something was happening because it was not perfectly normal to you. And nobody knew why Minnesota was ‘different’.
I have only seen baggers extermely rarely in UK and then, I suspect, only when an elderly person or harassed mum asked for help, and then it was another member of staff - the cashier NEVER does this. The queue would lynch any cashier who delayed matters by taking time to do that. We have been trained by speedy cashiers and the tuts of our fellow shoppers behind us to get bagged as fast as possible and get the hell out of the way before the first item from the next person in the queue arrives behind the cashier into the bagging area. 
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Definitely time to switch grocers.
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Non reusable is defined by the law as plastic bags under 50 microns.
Sure, you can reuse them few times, you should and I do. But it’s a personal and limited action, a law applies to anyone and make a difference on a bigger scale.
I found some numbers, first they charged for plastic bags : 10.5 billion bags in 2002 to 500 million in 2014.
We don’t have numbers yet but they have been banned in 2017, and small shops ans markets still use them, illegally.
Source (in French, sorry) : https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/environnement-et-sante/interdiction-des-sacs-plastiques-quel-bilan-apres-deux-ans_3120337.html
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The times i’ve seen baggers where i’m at in TX is because the store was busy so someone else will hop in to bag for the customer to ensure the line moves quickly. I always appreciate it but typically expect to bag my own stuff.
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And I don’t use them just once.
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Same when I was in California. Unfortunately, my home state of Virginia doesn’t do composting. 
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