h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In ten days there'll be no more paper or plastic bags in Austin supermarkets. On the one hand I think that's a good idea. My mother never used a plastic bag for most of her life - when I was a kid everyone (and by everyone I mean housewives because that's mostly how it was then) had shopping bags or a shopping trolley that they took with them, and they were built to last. Buying a new shopping bag was a rare occurrence.

I take a backpack with me when I go to the supermarket - I can usually get everything in there with maybe one, sometimes two overflow bags. Sometimes I choose paper, sometimes I choose plastic. I bring those home and keep them, then I use them for kitchen waste by double-bagging two paper grocery bags and hooking the handle of the plastic bag over them. I never get through more than two bags of rubbish a week and this arrangement has worked well for the past seven or eight years. Recycling.

But when I run out of both paper and plastic bags I'm going to have to figure something else out, and at the moment that looks like buying a pedal bin or a flip top bin and buying liners for it that I'm going to throw away when they're full. Not recycling. I wonder how many of those thin plastic bags it takes to make a plastic kitchen waste bin?

I recently purchased a large, pedal bin. I wanted a nice one. I didn't expect to pay $80 for it.

So are they completely banning all bags? Not just charging a fee for them? I've been using my own bags for ages. I have no problem with banning plastic bags. Just take a kayak trip down any river or bayou and count all the plastic bags along the shore and hanging from trees.

I guess they'll be glad to sell you another canvas bag if you have more items than the bags you brought can carry. If I run over, I usually opt for paper bags if I have a choice. I have a feeling some people are going to end up with quite a collection of canvas bags over the coming years.

I must remember to take all my bags down to the car again before my next trip to the store.

My niece lives in Wales. Since 2011, there has been a standard charge of 5p for every single use carrier bag (normally plastic but paper ones are included if available) The point was to stop people using plastic bags and buy reusable hessian, cotton 'bags for life' etc bags.

From what I've seen, retailers who sell plastic bags then have to account what they have done with the money and net profits should be used to support eco-friendly initiatives. http://www.greggs.co.uk/welsh-carrier-bag-charges/ One example there.

Now I live in Cyprus which is carrier bag mad. I own a small business and need to buy rolls of carrier bags to give to my customers for their purchases if asked for. I am given a carrier bag to put my carrier bags in! I bought a couple of days worth of groceries today, I came out with 8 carrier bags for 16 euros worth of shopping! One carrier had a single bottle of wine in and another had a small bag of potatoes. I could have got it all in 2 carriers but since my car was just outside, I could really have just put it all in the crates I keep in the boot/trunk. But the checkout girls bag up as they scan and the effort of arguing with them is not worth the hassle. Cyprus has only recently opened it's first Lidl stores and they are the only ones to charge for carriers, though they have a range of cheap plastic carriers, to more expensive reusable freezer bags and hessian sacks.

I use all those supermarket bags for either bin bags or I will use them to bag up my customer's purchases.

Yep, all bags both paper and plastic, except for the ones you fill in the bulk department. Nice zip top bags they are, and I re-use those too for all sorts of things, not just storage. I use them for sealing in food waste when I throw it away, such as what's left after I've made stock, and especially during the hot weather That's another thing our parents used to to do btw - wrap up food waste instead of just tossing it in the dustbin, not that they made a whole lot, but everyone's dustbin was spotless when I was a kid with not a trace of rotten food smell.

I don't mind using a canvas bag or any kind of re-usable bag, as long as I can find one that's not plastered with corporate names and logos, and I've used my own bags for food shopping for years. I can remember the very bag I used to shove all my food into when I shopped at Sainsburys in East Ham, and that was 1981.

This new bin of yours... made out of an old thruster that was lying around the JSP?

Not far from here. Got it at the B,B&B up the road.

I know what you mean about arguing with the people on the checkouts For one thing, I often get a blank stare when I say I have my own bag, even though this is eco-friendly Austin and even though the place I shop at is the kind of place that has a reputation for eco-friendly ideals. There is one other place I go to less frequently that gives me a $0.05 credit for using my own bag though.

I had a conversation about bags going away at the checkout this morning. Apparently it's just plastic bags - there'll still be paper. Maybe I was mixing it up with another bag ban, perhaps in California.