A few years ago, I purchased a small trash can from Target. At the time, I thought that the design was quite ingenious since it was a perfect fit for the ubiquitous plastic bags that all stores provided. The trash can even had two loops on the side to secure the handles of the plastic bags. Of course, I did not anticipate that many cities in the San Francisco Bay Area would prohibit stores from distributing these bags at check-out.
As our supply has dwindled, I’ve looked elsewhere for similar plastic bags. But, even this box of 4 gallon bags seemed expensive at 11¢ per bag. On a recent trip to Costco, I saw a box of T-Shirt Bags, those verboten plastic shopping bags. At 1,000 count, the price per bag was 1.5¢. Now, buying plastic shopping bags just to use as trash bags seems profligate. But, the only difference between shopping bags and trash bags is the handles.
Regardless of whatever new restrictions city government may present, I have enough plastic trash bags to last until my retirement. If I use one bag per week, I can last almost 20 years. Now that’s a smart buy. If I want to be even more economical, I bring them inside the store to use for groceries first before converting them to use as trash bags.
