To kaplods - Thumbs up to you for being able to find a cheaper source of your meds.

Kaplods, like you, I am on a very expensive medication routine. I buy most of my prescriptions now under Walmart's $4.00 plan and get my others through the mail with Medco. I am going to always buy mine where I can most easily afford it. I do have my Dr. write my Clonidine and Prednisone in double strength and break them in half so the bottle lasts twice as long.

As for the cloth bags at Walmart, I have saw them but I haven't bought any yet. I shop for 2 weeks at a time and normally have about 20 bags of groceries, so the cost of the bags would be a little expensive that first time. But, now that it's came to mind, I need to just go ahead and buy them. I guess part of the put-off to me with the bags is if I carry that many bags into the store with me, will they think I'm shoplifting?

Wal-mart was a good place for my retired Dad who was a teacher to work so he could have benefits until he was eligible for SS/Medicare. He worked in the sporting goods area. His only complaint was how customers and sometimes management treated him and other workers. He had sooooo many stories about customers talking down to him and some with management doing the same thing. My dad is very highly educated and he is a nice guy. It is a shame that some people think so highly of themselves that they can't or won't be nice. I think the movie Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze says it all when he is lecturing the bouncers/coolers on how to "be nice".

With reusable bags, especially those made out of some sort of cloth, you won't need as many because they are stronger. If you normally need 20 plastic bags, you can probably use 10 or less cloth bags.

Personally, I love the little plastic Wal*Mart bags. I have a bag keeper on the wall in my laundry room. Those suckers come in handy for the car trash, dirty diapers, dirty laundry when I stay the night away from home, carrying a change of shoes, lunch, whatever. Rather than be seen as disposable, to me, they're simply reusable. ;)

While they may be reusable for one or two times, the issue really is that plastic bags can take as much as 1000 years to decompose.

I've started a plastic "yarn" ball made by cutting the bags in strips. There are patterns online for welcome mats, baby bibs, market bags, trash cans, coasters, all sorts of things. (there are also patterns using cassete and videocassette tape and old CD's). Not that I see any of them being handed down generation to generation for 1000 years.

We reuse all of ours as well. But Wal*Mart does recycle plastic bags. You can take any plastic bags to a Wal*Mart store and put them in their recycle bins. They've been doing that for years. They also recycle cardboard, plastic from freight, hangers, paper and aluminum cans.

I'm not a fan of those "environmentally safe" bags at Walmart and all the grocery stores. They just don't seem very sanitary to me, especially when the bagger puts meat into them! I try to catch them before they do that, but sometimes it's too late then I have to throw away that particular "environmentally friendly" bag.

Also, they start to stink after a few grocery trips. I used to keep them in my car so I wouldn't forget them, but after a couple weeks I started smelling this horrible stink. Finally I pinpointed the smell, and it was the bags. I threw them all away. Yuck.

I use the plastic bags when I'm scooping litterboxes. I've got 9 cats, so believe me they all get used. I like the ones from Target the best, they are sturdier than Walmart's plastic bags.

Uh ... washing machine? They're canvas. They can be washed.

Americans are too tied up in being "sanitary", IMO, and in so doing are destroying our environment.

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I have environmental friendly bags and they never smell or have problems. I don't buy meat though so it isn't an issue.

I buy meat and I've never had a problem with mine. I have washed a couple of them - not because of meat issues, but because once a quart of milk leaked, and a couple of times just because they got "grungy" looking.

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I think she meant the plastic bags...and called them "environmentally friendly" because of being able to recycle them at Wally world.

I use canvas bags too....my main hang up is remembering to put the dang things in my car!

RE: meat: Those are the only items I will put in a plastic bag. I realize it does not totally eliminate plastic bags from the environment, but it helps!

Here is a suggestion - if you have abundance of plastic grocery bags, you may want to bring them to a charity store (like Salvation Army). I take mine to a local charity store run by the Mennonites and also to my vet's - they use them to pick up poop (just like I do).
I actually fold them very neatly and when I have a pile I take it one of the two places I mentioned. They always seem to be surprised that I take the effort to flatten them and fold them - I think the plastic bag may bring out the obsessive-compulsive gene in me. :-)

My daughter gave a college speech on this, a plastic bag takes 1,000 years to break down. I had no idea. We try to take bags with us but I often forget so then ask for paper. If I get plastic I have to sneak in the house with it and then we recycle it.

The Whole Foods bags are on Ebay for hundreds. That isn't cool but I guess it's become a fashion trend.