Paper or Plastic

Last weekend, the Muttrox family went to the Providence Children’s Museum. If you click to that picture, you will see there is a hundred foot dragon that lies atop the building. Our boy couldn’t stop talking about it days later. You would ask him if he went potty in his pants, or if he wants more banana, and the answer would be “Dragon! Big tall nice dragon!” That has nothing to do with anything, I just think it’s pretty neat. Providence is home to a disproportiate number of large animal sculptures, the most famous being the Big Blue Bug (featured in Dumb & Dumber). I was just reading about it here, interesting history. It’s name is “Nibbles”. Nibbles.

Anyhow, one of the exhibits at the museum is something called “Littlewoods“. Basically a big plastic forest type place for toddlers to go wild in. And of course some pamphlets for the parents. Including one on paper vs. plastic. Which (FINALLY) brings me to the point of this post. Paper vs. Plastic bags. The eternal debate, at least as far as mediocre comedians are concerned. This pamphlet was strongly in favor of paper, for many environmental reasons. And the further I read, the more I realized something important.

I don’t care about the environment. I just want to get my foodhome easily.

I hate plastic, but not because of the environment. I just hate those plastic bags. They are awful.

Consider:
1) They are hard to get off the rack. I often see the bagger fumbling to get the front of the bag opened up and still on the hooks so items can actually be put in it. No problems with paper bags, just grab one of the stack and ffwwipp it.
2) They don’t hold anything. This almost deserves a separate post it gets me so mad. For example, I buy a gallon of milk, some ice cream bars, and a bag of chips. (For example.) And how do they bag it? I end up with three bags, one for each item. No, no, that defeats the point of having a bag! The bag serves two purposes: To give you an affordance to grip, and to put multiple items in a bag so that you carry less things. Putting three items in three bags completely defeats the point. For godsake, the milk even has it’s own handle, why the hell would I need a bag for that? 12 items or less results in dozens of these f’in plastic bags! Even when they do pack them up, they hold only three or four items a piece. Paper can hold 15-20.
3) They don’t stay organized, if they ever were. You put them in the back of the car. What happens? They instantly spill all over the place. You dcan’t pack the car, you just end up with a big heap of food. It’s just like your shopping cart was, only now there are plastic bags in random spots to add color. Paper bags don’t do that, they line up in a nice grid and stay that way.
4) So when you get home, you have to repack the plastic bags, to get all the food items back in. And they are hard to hold. Ever have nine bags in the back seat and you spend a full minute trying to arrange them one by one on your hand so you can carry enough of them at once? Kind of a pain, isn’t it? No problems with paper bags, especially since they often come with handles nowadays.

Times have changed. I speak from inside knowledge. I worked for three years as a cashier/bagger at Stop & Shop. On day one, we were trained how to pack bags. It’s not hard. Heavy on bottom, light on top, fill to the rim but no higher. Pretty simple, right? When I ask for paper nowadays, I get a look of bewilderment, as if the bagger has just been asked to solve a particularly tricky calculus problem.

(BTW, the environmental question is open. The children’s museum wanted you to use paper, but if you google around, there’s just as many ecological arguments to use plastic instead. I don’t really care, I just want to get my groceries home easily.)