I was searching online to see if it was okay to save part of a smoothie for the next day, and I found this answer: “lol who just has half a smoothie?? i just drink the whole thing.” LOL wow thanks for that helpful contribution.
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Target has finally gotten me to switch to reusable bags, not through their 5-cents-per-reusable-bag discount, but by making their plastic bags crappier. I used to collect and treasure the Target bags because they were great as liners for small trash cans and for disposing of cat-box scoopage. But now they’re thin and cheap and frequently have little holes in them, so fine, I will use reusable shopping bags. But what to do about the litter box? BUYING plastic bags for that instead of reusing the ones I got from a store seems like going the wrong direction here, environmentally-speaking.
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It is a little early for it, but yesterday I did the first installment of my annual gift-card plan. There are still more than fifteen weeks until Christmas, but last year I kept forgetting to get a card on each shopping trip and ended up having to go to Target the day before school vacation to buy several more cards, which kind of defeats the purpose of the plan. Also, I just added it up, and including bus drivers, elementary-school teachers, mail carrier, and karate/music teachers, I need thirteen gift cards, so I’m not actually early after all. Target doesn’t have the holiday-themed ones out yet, of course, but I get the bird one that has a lot of red and green and looks pleasantly non-specific-holidayish in December.
Can I suggest something that is perhaps insane? What if–in anticipation of next year’s gift card plan–you just picked up a bunch of the Christmas gift cards and didn’t get them activated, then just brought one with you on each shopping trip and loaded it? If it were me, I would forget them every single time, so I realize this isn’t a flawless plan.
We use bread bags for litter box scooping! Just the right size!
Oh, PERFECT! And we always have a TON of those!
This is genius. GENIUS. I’d noticed the declining state of Target bags as well and wondered where I would find my hole-free bags.
I do that too and in a pinch I use a paper, lunch bag. For the scoopable litter, it work pretty well.
Yes! The Target bags of old- how I love them! They are the only thing I hoard.
I got incredibly lucky once. I had a newbie check out girl and I asked her some extra bags (to add to my hoard.) And she took off a WHOLE SECTION OF THEM (you know, how they are kind of connected at the top- a whole on of those!) and gave the whole thing to me. OMG! You know she would not have been allowed to do that. You can imagine how I scampered out of the store!
So yeah, I’ve got many bags. I still have trouble using them because once they are gone they are GONE! I use them as trash collectors in my car.
My leftover smoothie solution is to put leftovers in Popsicle molds for future breakfast Popsicles. A fun morning treat and just as healthy as the original smoothie!
This popsicle idea is PURE GENIUS! In fact, I love it so much I may just make breakfast popsicles in big batches so I don’t have to blend up smoothies in the morning when we’re in a rush, and my kids will think I’m a hero for allowing popsicles! for! breakfast!
I think the kind of pet-poop bags you buy may be biodegradable. We use plastic grocery bags for our litterbox scoopings, but I feel guilty about it.
I think this is true and have been known to snitch such bags from public parks/HOA boxes. I suppose I should feel guilty about this (and maybe I do, slightly), but it helps keep our world cleaner. I also pick up and throw away trash when walking through parks/neighborhoods, so hopefully the two deeds cancel each other out.
I’m liking the gift-card idea, but last year all the parents collaborated on making a big donation in the names of the teachers and teachers’ assistants to fund scholarships for girls in the developing world – if I’d gone ahead with those 4 gift cards earlier I would have either missed out on the group thing or had to re-purpose the gift cards. I suppose I could have spent them on myself though…
I have a small round garbage can (bathroom sized) I keep by the litter pan. I line it with 2 target bags and it makes a handy holder for scooping when the time comes. Sucks that I have to use 2 bags, but I have for years just in case of holes. You can only get burned so many times before you figure it out.
Now that we live in a city that doesn’t allow plastic bags to be given out at any store (and they charge you 10 cents each for the paper bags), I’m incredibly good about remembering to bring my reusable bags. But oh, how I miss those plastic Target bags. I have my mom and sister hoard them for me and I smuggle them all back to San Francisco for use as trash can liners.
We also use bread bags as cat scooping bags, but now have to buy bags to use when walking the dog which does indeed seem like the wrong environmental direction. We used to just use plastic grocery bags for that.
I live in Seattle, and it’s the same way. So instead of re-using single-use plastic bags, I am BUYING single-use plastic bags to fill with litter scoopings and dog poop. It’s annoying.
I have issues with the whole “legislating morality” aspect I see in environmental laws on the personal level anyway. I agree that large corporations will happily dump toxins in the drinking water if not reined in, and yes, I realize that there are plenty of people out there who waste paper and never have a cloth bag, and drive everywhere rather than walking now and then, but jeez. Can’t I just once forget my cloth bag without paying a 10 cent per bag tax for it? PLUS, to make things worse, now that the stores have to charge for the bags, the clerks are afraid of being yelled at, so they cram more into the bag than they should, they don’t bag bulkier items at all (which is a pain in the ass if stairs are involved, because now multiple trips are necessary) and I end up feeling like a jackass at the counter when I tell the clerk “Look, I don’t care if you have to charge me for it, I want an amount of bags equal to the amount of stuff I have to carry,” and everyone in line looks at me as though I just clubbed a baby seal.
Don’t even get me started on Seattle’s food and yard waste program. I have a huge rant about that.
I think supermarket bags have holes nowadays to prevent children asphyxiation in case they put them over their heads when parents aren’t looking. Also here in the UK supermarket regulations are based on garbage weight so thinner bags= less non-compliances.
I use the plastic bags that you bag fruit & veg in at the grocery store. Usually have enough for one week’s litter but sometimes I smuggle a few extra bags, lol.
Dang, I was JUST at the Target. Thanks for the gift card plan reminder – I’m a huge fan of this plan and will implement starting next week.
Me! Me! I drink half a smoothie! But I’ve never figured out how to store the other half properly; it always gets gross in the fridge overnight. Popsicles are a marvelous idea.
They must not have switched the plastic bags at our Target yet… or this change has happened in the last few weeks, since my last trip. Now I want to go and get some before they’re gone forever. They really are the best.
I feel the SAME WAY about grocery store bags! I use them for the trash cans around the house, and the idea of having to go BUY plastic bags to put in those instead of just using the ones that helped me get the groceries into the house seems ridiculous! :\
I don’t know if our plastic bags are up to snuff (were Target bags really that superior to other plastic bags?) but my husband refuses to use reusable bags and takes his sweet time about returning them to the store, so I currently have about 5 million of those damn bags in my house on any given week. Anybody that wants them can have them. I some of them for the bathroom trashcans and to collect trash in the car – but dear God in heaven, I can’t use them as fast as he brings them in!
I’ve occasionally saved leftover smoothies in the fridge, and while I’ve never gotten sick from it or anything they never taste as good on the second day. I always wondered if it would be possible to freeze the smoothie in an ice cube tray and re-blend the cubes later on, but I’ve never tried it.
Smoothie Popsicles with leftover smoothie are the best. I also have frozen as I’ve cubes and used in future smoothies and that worked fine as best as I can recall.
We used to use the fruit & veggies little grocery bags for cat litter, they worked great.
I am a crazy eco-freak who loves using reusable bags (bringing groceries home is more like opening a pretty present), but in spite of that, I am a big fan of the Litter Genie. It’s like a diaper genie for cat poop.
Yes, it uses a continuous plastic liner, but the payoff is in the odor containment. We have three cats and I scoop the boxes every day, but I only tie off and take a ‘load’ out every 10 days or so. It holds a LOT. Target sells the liners as a 2-pack, and you can quite often get them on sale. (I stock up.)
I wrote a little review when I bought mine, if you’re interested.
Get a daily paper delivered. The plastic sleeves they come in are perfect for pooper-scoopering.
I did the bag ‘o cat poop thing for ages, but last month I switched to World’s Best litter. Let me tell you. Huge clumps of that stuff, even in combination with desiccated solid waste from the night before, can be flushed. Only occasionally do I have to do a second flush, and there’re yet to be any clogging issues. My outlook has been significantly sunnier now that there are no toxic baggies–Target or not–hanging around the house.
I second the Popsicle/smoothie thing.
Also for plastic bags, I have actually taken them out of the bin at the store where people drop them off for recycling. I use them for pet poo, so I don’t really care what was in them before. Also, newspaper bags and bread/bagel bags work great.
So glad you said you were doing the gift card buying already because it reminds me to begin gift card buying and noting how much and to whom it is supposed to go to. I always for get to get them and then get annoyed with myself for the holiday spending.