Comment by WarmWash
4 days ago
My state did away with bags a few years ago, and you now never see bags blowing around or stuck on trees. It also seems everyone stopped complaining about it once we got over the hump of "remember to bring your bags".
So we are just left with a small group of old timers, who would probably bring back metal (pull) tab cans if they could, complaining about it. Ironically its the same group of people who blocked windmills because they are "unsightly".
I've had a vague thought that I wish grocery stores would kind of standardize their bags (you have to use theirs) and just put a passive RFID in them and make them more expensive, but make them nicer, with maybe specific bags for specific use cases (sturdy for fruits, lining for things that need to stay cold). So it would just be a cost that you pay as part of getting a bag ($3) and you get it fully refunded in when you bring it back.
It would mean you don't have to remember to carry the bag all day (which is fine if you drive, but a pain if you use public transit and have to carry bags everywhere). Just "check one out" if you don't have one, bring them back and they will be reused (and you credited) for returning them (or just reuse them yourself, if you want).
This may partially be driven by my mother, who has like 7 different types of bags that she takes to the local HEB. It is always a little song and dance with the bagger about which things go in which of her bags. These are true first world problems, but it just makes me consider alternatives.
Also, minor, but if the bags were actually "valuable", then it would encourage the homeless who find discarded bags to collect them and return them themselves, which helps with the "visible garbage" problem.
These are idiot thoughts of mine, but I do sometimes wonder about alternatives.
Your state has eliminated metal tab cans? Huh. What do you drink 12oz of pop out of?
I think they mean the 1970s-style "pull-tabs" that disconnected from the can. These were frequently discarded as litter, instead of put in a proper bin. I can remember seeing a lot of them in road gutters as a kid.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drink_can#Opening_mechanisms
For those not familiar, these are the ones which were in common use in the 1970s and 1980s:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/12/4f/79124fb24fd0cc6ac4cf...
I think that’s about pull tabs (the old kind where you removed a small disc from the top of a can) vs pop tabs (the kind where you punch a hole into it and nothing detaches).
Decades ago they used to pull completely off the can (think Jimmy Buffet "stepped on a pop-top").