switching to reusable grocery bags

[darlintxmomma]

i have been wanting to do this for quite some time and i came across some really pretty decorator fabric on sale for $2 so i made my own grocery bags...turned out quite nice too.
my question is, for those of you who dont ever bring plastic grocery bags into your house anymore, what do you use as small trashcan liners? my trashcans would get so stinkin funky if i didnt use a liner and i hate the though of buying small bags for that purpose. i use the fool outta those bags (and not just for trashcans) and im trying to wrap my head around not having them anymore.
so what do you use instead?

[canuckgal]

I do use the grocery store plastic bags...I bag with some of them every 6 trips or so, or when I run out of them for my bathroom garbage. Otherwise, I bag with cloth.

[blairhoney]

You could buy compostable trash bags - it's what we use in our compost bin (a small garbage can that gets put in a neighborhood compost collection).

[Freeman]

Congrats on going cloth! I like both suggestions - bagging with plastic occasionally so that you can use those bags when you need them...I also like the compostable bag idea - I hadn't seen those before but will look for them!

[AllieFaye]

I knit the grocery plastic bags into a recycled plastic carry all. I use larger trash bins to begin with, so I don't have need for small bin liners. I find that one or two larger bins helps me mentally picture how much trash I generate. I don't use small bins anymore.

[darlintxmomma]

i havent heard of the compostable bags...thats a great idea!
i think i will probably just get plastic periodically to keep stocked up.
im hoping to start recycling too when we get moved to san antonio. they apparently have the largest curb side recycling pickup service in the state so im totally excited about that. where i live now they dont have much to offer in the way of recycling. they take very little and i have to drive about 30 minutes away to drop it off.
i was just kinda freaking out about 'not ever' having a plastic bag in my house again...but i dont think a few will do too much damage.
thanks for all your responses. i dont feel quite so overwhelmed now.

[Meiri]

While I use the cloth bags, DH does not. Between him and the occasions when we go to a store together(the bags live in my car), we have a supply of the plastic to reuse for whatever. I also take them to be recycled occasionally too.

[pixiepunk]

another thought, too, on using the plastic bags as bin liners. we will use the same one till it gets gross - filling it up, then emptying it out into a larger trash bag. we keep little trash cans around the house (office, bathroom, under the sink the kitchen) and then empty them into a large trash bag and put them in a can outside. we dump our trash at the local dump rather than paying for pickup because with composting and recycling (as well as buying in bulk, avoiding pre-packaged stuff and reusing lots of containers) we generate so little garbage that it's absurd to pay the same amount as people generating 6x as much. so we let it collect up in a bunch of cans we have out by our shed and then take the trash to the dump maybe once every 2 months. we hate the plastic bags too, and don't see any point in having 12 little plastic bags inside one giant garbage bag, so we generally empty the little trash cans into the big bag, but keep the liner in the can unless it's really nasty. but since we compost, it keeps a lot of the nastier/stinkier stuff out of the trash and we can reuse the same liner many times before feeling the need to replace it.

[celestialdreamer]

We have 2 small trashcans in our bathrooms and 1 large one in the kitchen. We do buy the Seventh Generation big bags for our kitchen trash, and empty everything into that, including the catbox, then take it all out. I actually wash all 3 trashcans out after each time they get taken out. I just use a little white vinegar, hot water and some tea tree oil, let them all sit for about 10 minutes then rinse them out and dry them with a towel.

I think the key is also to work on producing less garbage by buying less, buying in bulk/with less packaging, recycling, composting, using cloth that can be reused etc. Then you have less to put in the trash can

[EnviroBecca]

Um, I wouldn't worry about running out of plastic bags unless you find that it actually happens. We've been using real bags or blue bags* for all our shopping for a decade, yet non-blue plastic bags show up in our house somehow! People bring us stuff in a bag, guests go shopping and bring back bags, etc. Several times we've given our entire stash of non-blue bags to someone for cleaning up after their dog or whatever, and a month later we have a big pile of them again!

*Pittsburgh's curbside recycling requires recyclables to be in BLUE plastic bags so the garbage and recycling crews don't pick up each other's stuff. The grocery stores give out both blue bags and another color (usually white). I handle all the recycling for my church and some special events, as well as my household, so I need a lot of blue bags. Whenever I run low, I just do a grocery trip without my reusable bags and make sure to stand in a line that's giving out blue bags!