Alt text: Meme caption: "When you forget to bring your reusable bags to the grocery store", below is an image of Dexter from Dexter's laboratory weeping as he strokes a picture of the earth, saying "I have failed you!"
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
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Happened to me today. I just bring everything to my car in the cart, pit ‘em in the trunk and bag ‘em when I get home, to carry inside. It’s not that bad.
I always put them back in my car after a trip so I won't forget them
I always keep two the in rucksack I bring for shopping. I will not fail again!
My punishment for myself is to buy more reusable bags at checkout.
That is way worse than just getting single use if you are just collecting them and not actually using them. Reusable are a net positive only if you actually reuse them hundreds of times.
Yeah, I give them to friends and family.
I'm sure the millionaires and the billionaires are telling themselves the same thing while sitting in their pritave jet en route to the 'grocery' store.
Seeing a company dump waste in a park doesn’t mean I have to squat down and take a shit there, too.
No. I still bring my reusable bag to the store. I never had a car, use a bike or public transit. I 've always been very careful. But it's just very disappointing to see some moderately rich asshole ruin all of my lifetime efforts in a day. Also, the pandemic showed me that most people don't give a fuck and just wanted to go back to "normal" polluting.
In fact, the whole plastic industry convinced people over the years into cleaning and recycling it instead of reducing its use. Also, I'm sure some of you know that lots of reusable bags are just thicker plastic, that they need to be reused a whole lots of times before being "ecological", that some people like to collect them, and that it can ends up being worse than using disposable ones.
We just can't stop the consumption, but somehow, bringing a reusable bag will remove the guilt.
I still feel very guilty and like it's a failure every time I have to use a car, but that's just me because everyone is encouraging me to get one and use them. Just get an electric one. They are heavier and require like tones of batteries to move 1.5 person around, and their reusable bags, but they are "ecological"!
Google's emissions have risen by 50% in a few years, mostly because of AI. So I try to avoid using "AI". But apparently, most people don't have those concerns.
When I see all the ways the people around me pollute, consume and dispose, the reusable bag is low on the list of things I feel guilty about.
I agree. But when I disagree is using that as an excuse to discount individual action.
Just because billionaires are racist doesn’t mean it’s fine for me to be racist. Same logic here.
Do not hurt Earth-chan 🥲
Something something something.....omelette du fromage.
swoons
If I forget them, I just carry everything in my hands.
I’ve turned my shirt into a bag before. Yes I’m a freak.
This freak I can get behind
I have this folding/ collapsible crate I keep in my trunk of my car. ( yeah I know car) I love it it holds like 6 bags worth of stuff. Makes 2 trips bringing things in and out of the car into one( no need to do the Heman 10 bags in one hand thing). I always forget bring in the bags I keep in my car but I enjoy using the crate so there is that.
Also I know the crate probably uses same amount of plastic as like a million bags or something. But I have had the crate before the bag thing became an issue and use it for things like camping and day trips. Also I now buy small plastic bags to pick up my dogs shit instead of using the bags I got from the store. Also buy bags for my bathroom now. I wonder how much plastic I have saved by not using plastic bags at the store...
I think it was all a scam to get me to pay for them. Just like the plastic straw. Cool you gave me a paper straw to save the planet or what ever and even charged me for it but then you give me my drink in a FUCKING PLASTIC CUP. WTF. FUCK YOU.
Now I buy plastic garbage bags and put plastic wrapped food in my re-useable bags instead of the reusable plastic grocery bags I used for garbage.
Oh no! Well, time to go home and return to the store I guess...
This is why I keep boxes from in the back of my truck and just load them up, I hope to find industrial milk crates to replace the cardboard.
Also before folks come at me I drive an 01 Toyota Tacoma which has gas mileage comparable to a particularly inefficient motorcycle. Its the best I can afford.
Now I keep plastic bags in my shoes and socks so I can whip them out whenever needed. Emergency toilet in a pinch
🧐
Fear not for there is still enough room in my backpack for some essentials. I may have to carry my water bottle in hand, but this is a sacrifice I am willing to make for the greater good.
Whats the book say? physics and ... ?
Calculus?
Oh maybe?
Last I remember, a cloth bag needs to be used for a minimum of 1000 grocery trips for it to even begin to offset the environmental cost of making it.
Now, I've had mine for 5 years. So I'm making good progress.
But I do miss the plastic ones just because I always used them as garbage bags. The tax on plastic grocery bags are nuts. They cost a buck each. Unless you buy 50 of them for garbage use... then they're all of a sudden dirt cheap and so thin it feels like breathing on them will poke a hole.
So one cloth bag is equal to 1,000 plastic bags? That doesn't seem right. Certainly it can't be taken into effect that garbage created by the 1,000 plastic bags.
Taking garbage from 1000 plastic bags into account is exactly what it does.
You're underestimating just how much is needed for a cloth bag.
From growing the cotton, to processing it, to making the bag. That's a long way. There are a lot of steps involved. A lot of energy required.
Yes I understand the cotton bag will take a lot more than a plastic bag to create. I'm just doubting the Thousand to one number. But again what I'm really really doubting is that they've taken into account the effect of a thousand bags have after they're made. Which is rather the point of switching to the cotton bags in the first place. Or other types of bags by the way they don't all have to be cotton. I've never owned a cotton one. Not sure why that has to be our only example here.
Here is some info from the UN. They take into account a lot of factors beyond carbon output, including acidification of oceans and land use changes. So the 1000 uses is how many uses to be better in all categories. For carbon output, it is around 150 uses.
I guess it depends which categories are more important to you. Plastic is obviously going to be superior in agricultural run-off issues. Cloth is obviously superior in micro plastic emissions. They don't evaluate microplastics though, so it might be skewed in favour of plastic.
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/31932/SUPB.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
There's really not that much plastic in a plastic bag.
There's more plastic in a happy meal toy than most bags.
Solution? Sewing DIY bags from old clothing.
More reusable and personal than a factory bag, and you already know how to mend it to keep it going. Uses less raw resources than a plastic bag, as it was going to the trash anyways. It's a great beginner sewing project.
Absolutely! If only people would bother to do it. If they were. We probably wouldn't be here to begin with.