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> It takes effectively zero effort to keep a reusable bag around I’ve found it takes lots of effort. It’s a chore to keep track of and bring it back out to the

> It takes effectively zero effort to keep a reusable bag around I’ve found it takes lots of effort. It’s a chore to keep track of and bring it back out to the car. I probably now have 10 reusable bags that I’ve bought because I keep forgetting them at home, or in the car when I wasn’t expecting to go to the store. It’s not a huge effort, but it’s definitely non-zero. Obviously, I should be smarter. But I’m not, sadly.

scoofy 3y ago
It's obviously not a habit for you, and that's fine. My point is that it's not physically difficult to do. It's just something you need to remember to do. This is what I mean by the next generation just being habituated to the process. There are plenty of these types of "chores" we accept because they are something we see as worthwhile. Wearing a seat belt, brushing our teeth, stepping outside to smoke a cigarette, putting on headphones to use our phone on the bus, not using a phone in a theater, etc., etc., etc. When this is normalize, nobody will notice, but the 20 years of transition will be slightly annoying, but my point is that, during that 20 years... we're not even materially changing our behavior. The stores have paper or slightly denser plastic bags for you. The thing that drives me crazy about this whole debate is how trivial it is. It's effectively the least possible change we can make to substantially change the culture, and very same people seem to claim that it's both (1) not enough change to matter, and (2) so much change that it's harming environmentalism as a cause. The entire point of doing it this way is behavioral economics. If you make it slightly annoying, most people will eventually change their behavior. The fact that so many people hate such a small change so much is exactly why I point out that the people who care so much about a slight behavioral change don't actually care about environmentalism, is that most folks haven't even begun to gauge the level of cultural change we need to actually fight climate change. If you think being asked to generally keep a grocery bag in your car is too much to ask, just wait until you're "incentivized" to take an ebike to the grocery store... If that's something you can't stomach even if it destroys the climate, then you don't care about the climate.
- prepend 3y ago
  It’s not physically difficult, it’s mentally difficult. And that’s what’s more important. Stopping smoking isn’t physically difficult. That’s not the part that matters. It’s mentally difficult.
AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
I guess that depends on habits and preferences, but I much prefer my sturdy reusable bags over the basic plastic bags. Sure I do sometimes forget to bring my reusable bags, but even environmental reasons aside I hate plastic bags. It makes it harder to carry groceries, where you might have 10-20 bags instead of two big solid bags. They also frequently rip, so you have to pick stuff up and your groceries gets damaged. Then you have to toss all of them (or store them somewhere "in case" where you end up with 100s of them).

scoofy 3y ago

It's obviously not a habit for you, and that's fine. My point is that it's not physically difficult to do. It's just something you need to remember to do. This is what I mean by the next generation just being habituated to the process. There are plenty of these types of "chores" we accept because they are something we see as worthwhile. Wearing a seat belt, brushing our teeth, stepping outside to smoke a cigarette, putting on headphones to use our phone on the bus, not using a phone in a theater, etc., etc., etc. When this is normalize, nobody will notice, but the 20 years of transition will be slightly annoying, but my point is that, during that 20 years... we're not even materially changing our behavior. The stores have paper or slightly denser plastic bags for you. The thing that drives me crazy about this whole debate is how trivial it is. It's effectively the least possible change we can make to substantially change the culture, and very same people seem to claim that it's both (1) not enough change to matter, and (2) so much change that it's harming environmentalism as a cause. The entire point of doing it this way is behavioral economics. If you make it slightly annoying, most people will eventually change their behavior. The fact that so many people hate such a small change so much is exactly why I point out that the people who care so much about a slight behavioral change don't actually care about environmentalism, is that most folks haven't even begun to gauge the level of cultural change we need to actually fight climate change. If you think being asked to generally keep a grocery bag in your car is too much to ask, just wait until you're "incentivized" to take an ebike to the grocery store... If that's something you can't stomach even if it destroys the climate, then you don't care about the climate.

prepend 3y ago
It’s not physically difficult, it’s mentally difficult. And that’s what’s more important. Stopping smoking isn’t physically difficult. That’s not the part that matters. It’s mentally difficult.

AStrangeMorrow 3y ago

I guess that depends on habits and preferences, but I much prefer my sturdy reusable bags over the basic plastic bags. Sure I do sometimes forget to bring my reusable bags, but even environmental reasons aside I hate plastic bags. It makes it harder to carry groceries, where you might have 10-20 bags instead of two big solid bags. They also frequently rip, so you have to pick stuff up and your groceries gets damaged. Then you have to toss all of them (or store them somewhere "in case" where you end up with 100s of them).