ironwood

Ha ha.

I-Like-To-Bike

No charge for plastic bags at most grocery/supermarket/big box department stores here; Aldi is the exception.
Hy-Vee credits the customer 5¢ for each canvas bag that the customer provides for packing the groceries, and will provide free plastic bags for the groceries not packed in customer provided bags.

Free grocery plastic bags are perfect for lining small kitchen trash cans for disposal of wet/stinky garbage. Grocery bags (plastic or canvas) hanging and swinging from the handlebars of a bicycle moving in traffic - not so perfect for safety or aesthetics.

ironwood

I think donuts were made with holes so you could slip them on the handlebars. As for hanging bannanas from the bars, that's absurd.

cooker

If your pannier or backpack is full, this is better than cramming them in.

I-Like-To-Bike

From a safety standpoint, it is not. Anyone smart enough to buy their own groceries should be able to figure out what will fit in his/her pannier or backpack without cramming. Or figure out how to buy bananas when he/she has the means to carry them home safely.

tandempower

My mind is just not so bent on negativity as yours. I view free plastic shopping bags as an amazing modern innovation and a triumph of society that they can be given away for free. They are practically waterproof and they are really quite strong. They can be re-used, and when they are thrown away they can be compressed into a very small volume.

I have a crate on a luggage rack, but when it is full, I carry plastic grocery sacks on my handlebars. I didn't read any posts about that method, so I thought it would be worth describing in detail, since it is very efficient and convenient. I'm sorry you worry about looking like a 'destitute junkie' so much that it deters you from taking advantage of all the options available to you, but maybe one day your mind will be liberated from this negativity that seems to consume it and you'll be able to enjoy using shopping bags without worrying about looking ugly by doing so.

tandempower

Some do.

tandempower

Depending on your height, you could thread quite a few donuts onto the seat post, I think

cooker

You think carrying bananas on a handlebar is dangerous and I think biking with earphones is dangerous. I guess we're just a couple of worry-warts.

ironwood

If you live in a place where there are monkeys, or chimpanzees around, the bananas might attract them. Also, there might be tarantulas hidden in a big bunch of bananas.

tandempower

And minions!

travelinhobo

Oh my. Such funny responses! I love the banana idea! Ingenius even if it's not practical (I don't have mtn. bike handlebars on my hybrid. And if you have an odometer, a headlight, etc. mounted, there won't be enough space, I think!) Donuts on the seat post??? Definately not practical.

I'm interested in the fact that apparently California isn't the only place now charging for plastic bags on steriods. What other states or countries are requiring a small charge to buy bags that last as long as the original cheap bags that every cashier/bag boy were terrified to fill too full and double bag? I find it pathetic that all focus has been on the check out bags and not the fruit/veggie bags! I reuse mine for maybe a dozen times if not more before I have to trash them. I rarely encounter anyone else who thinks to do this!

tandempower

Seatposts can be a little greasy, and although donuts are fried in grease, you wouldn't wan't to mix that grease with your seatpost grease. The solution is to individually wrap each donut in plastic foil before threading it onto the seat post. Buying plastic foil may not seem like a cost-efficient solution where plastic shopping bags are free, but in California it may be cheaper than buying a bag for your donuts every shopping trip. If you're bothered by the time and mess it makes to wrap donuts individually in plastic foil, just call ahead to the store and ask them to have the donuts wrapped for you when you arrive. If you shop at an overpriced supermarket dedicated to service, this should be no problem.

wipekitty

I know for a fact that Austin, TX charges for bags now. I would also suspect areas of the Pacific Northwest.

I'm with you on this: we reuse plastic bags for groceries and also for household tasks - pet waste, trash, protecting areas for painting, and so on. The cloth bags we have (obtained for free) are nice, but do not do nearly as well at e.g. keeping a tub of Feta Cheese from spilling on my laptop and work papers in my commuting bag.

What's amazing is that when I was a young grocery bagger, we were actually trained to get people to use plastic because it was cheaper for the stores than using paper.

cooker

But you don't need a fresh supply every few days. And they have to be disposed of.

KD5NRH

Trash bags have to be disposed of too, along with cloth bags that are damaged, or soiled beyond the point where washing them properly costs more than replacing them.

ironwood

To get back to the issue of gocery shopping by bicycle. A couple of weeks ago I saw these enourmous SUVs in the parking lot of the local Supermarket, one was a Range Rover, driven by women who had at most a shopping bag of groceries. I thought how absurd.

khyricat

I don't drive an SUV, but I have in the past and probably will even when I bike shop for the most part, driven large car to store for one or 2 items.. BUT I drive by the entrance to the Meijer Parking lot on my way home from my 42 mile away clinic (it's between the highway exit and the house), so it's not really absurd to just make the extra stop. I drive a Subaru Impreza because I work in the medical world and have to get into work no matter what the weather.. so the smallest AWD vehicle I can drive.... if I need something for dinner or because we ran out and I can stop and pull in, park, get one item and then finish the drive home, it makes sense to do... I am not going to get home and turn around and bike back because that would put me crossing a 5 lane road at rush hour most likely just to get back to the store I already drove by. Will I plan to do most shopping trips with the trike, yes.. but they will be when traffic is lighter too.

I-Like-To-Bike

Of course the driver could have driven home to get another car, or even bought another car to keep on hand, perhaps a Corvette or Lamborghini, devoted to carrying only one or two bags of groceries, just in case a high minded busybody might have a conniption when scoping the parking lot for strangers' "misdeeds".

KD5NRH

Or the driver could have enough sense to get a 5-10 year old Honda that's been well maintained and gets 2-4 times the gas mileage of their land barge and use it any time they don't need the extra capacity. I've sat down with plenty of the "I have to have my 8MPG 1-ton truck to pull the boat/RV/grill 3-4 times a year" crowd and done the math; every one of them would have come out ahead in the first year by buying a 30MPG beater for their commute, even figuring in keeping the truck, and maintaining registration and insurance on it.

Never worked, though; they still just spent all their time griping about the cost of diesel to drive the truck 15-40 miles each way. Usually while they were letting it warm up (or cool off in the summer) for 15-20 minutes.

Roody

I have to give a shout out to Meijer while we're at it. Here in Lansing, all the Meijer stores have covered bus stops right by the front door. They also serve as transfer points for the suburban buses. Competitors like Walmart and Kroger don't even allow buses in the parking lot.

Meijer stores have bike racks under the canopies in their stores. They are starting to add protected walkways through their parking lots. And a friend tells me that the Meijer greeters will call a cab for you and page you when it arrives.

wahoonc

Interesting... my most recent trip to Meijhers was in Florence, KY (just south of Cincinnati) bike racks were kind of off to one side and the store was in poor condition. However they are in an area with extremely stiff competition from WM and other brands.

Aaron

cooker

Any chance of transferring to a clinic closer to home? Surely that would be less risky and more reliable for you and your patients in Michigan's unpredictable weather. Or telehealth?

khyricat

I work in dialysis at 2 clinics- one in inner city Detroit (3 days) and one local (2 days), my plan is to start bike commuting to the local one eventually... it's about 6 miles each way. There are a lot of reasons to not leave the further away clinic, though there are days I think about it and one day, the right opportunity will occur and I will probably leave.

cooker

Sounds good.