That didn't take long.

August 1 of this year, Fred Meyer stopped using plastic shopping bags at all of its Portland-area grocery stores. I'm generally in favor of this, as I find plastic shopping bags to be a scourge on this world in a way that paper shopping bags are not. However, I have had to make adjustments. We use the shopping bags for trash can liners and now we are completely out, as evidenced by the empty Ikea bag holder on the left. Also, since the garden has been producing a lot of zucchini, I haven't been buying vegetables at the store which means we are out of the plastic produce bags, which usually live in the Ikea bag holder on the right. The plastic produce bags also work as trash can liners, but don't have those handy handles to tie together.

Even the plastic bags that the newspapers usually arrive in are lacking. Over the summer, they've begun to go "old school" and my newspapers arrive folded with a rubber band securing them. Only on damp days do they come in a bag. Here you also see my ingenious low-cost drying method: it's a dowel propped between my cookbooks. In the morning, I hang the wet newspaper bag on the dowel and in the evening it is dry and I shove it in the Ikea bag holder. These bags I take to school for the teachers to use to as "poo bags" as Julie calls them. During Morning Movement in the park blocks, the teachers generally have to clean up after other people's dogs before the children can do their morning movement activity, which is lovely, and just one of the many unsung parts of being a teacher.
So I've bought trash bags for the first time in decades. I erred in my purchase as these trash bags are scented and the smell makes me ill. The question is now, what will I put in my Ikea bag holders?