How Cheaper Garbage Bags Can End Up Costing You More
Shoppers tangle with decisions of cost vs. quality all the time, but in the case of garbage bags, the blog The Simple Dollar argues, quality and thriftiness go hand in hand.
Reiterating the lesson driven home to us in those old "Hefty Hefty Hefty, Wimpy Wimpy Wimpy" commercials, the anguished writer explains why it's better to shell out more money for tough sacks:
We bought low-end garbage bags once. Of the first nine bags we used, two of them ripped and dumped their contents all over our kitchen floor on the way to the trash can. Each mess took at least ten minutes to clean up - one mess was almost entirely dry stuff, so it was fairly easy, but the other mess involved some sticky items, including a glass bottle that cracked and leaked some maple syrup on the floor.
The time lost cleaning up these messes almost immediately ate up the "value" we got in buying the low-end brand versus the price we would pay buying better bags in bulk.
Since then, we've stuck to the brand we trust - Glad Forceflex tall kitchen bags - which have won garbage bag comparisons in both Real Simple and Consumer Reports. We can get these bags in bulk for about eighteen cents a bag, compared to roughly fifteen cents a bag for generic. Given that we have, in three years, only had one breakage of our preferred kind of bag, we'll stick to our preferred brand, thank you.
Whenever I make a comment along these lines, people almost always suggest not filling the bags as much. "If you only filled the generics 80% full, then you wouldn't have the breakage!" Well, let's look at that scenario. If I have five 13 gallon bags and I fill each of them 80% full, I've got 52 gallons of trash. On the other hand, if I have four 13 gallon bags and I fill each of them to the brim, I have the same amount of trash — 52 gallons.
So, I can either use five generic bags (which cost fifteen cents a pop), empty the trash 25% more often, put more plastic into the environment, and spend a total of 75 cents, or I can use four of our preferred bags (which cost eighteen cents a pop), put less plastic into the environment, and only spend 72 cents.
I really like how he not only applied stats to the situation there, but also mathematically proved how "wimpy wimpy wimpy" destroys the environment. Impressive work, The Simple Dollar.
The Cheap Garbage Bag Dilemma [The Simple Dollar]
(Photo: Clean Wal-Mart)
Post a comment
Comments:
We use the cheaper CostCo bags for our daughter's diaper pail though. They work fine for a bag of dirty diapers but I don't trust them for our kitchen trash.
Not to mention that when the cheap one breaks you have to use another one. So you have to account for the extra ones when you calculate the REAL price.
I've never had a problem with using Costco bags in the kitchen.
I've always used to the cheap trash bags and have never had a problem. Am I doing something wrong?
Hmmm...Why didn't this thrift-minded blogger use all of the maple syrup in the glass container that broke? And why wasn't the glass container in the recycle bin??? Throwing away food and not recycling, double shame!! :p
Costco's Kirkland Signature garbage bags are great! And I don't have to buy very often.
You know what costs you less? Not buying trash bags at all. I reuse plastic grocery bags in my smaller trash cans and a paper and plastic bag in the kitchen. (Although I do have several rolls of thin "industrial" trash bags swiped from work--have never had one of those rip everywhere). I never understood why people spend money on bags they are just going to throw away.
I'm pretty sure Costco's Kirkland brand bags are much less than $.15 per bag, and they're good quality bags. I've never had one break. All Kirkland brand products are good quality.
I just bought the cheapo brand from my local grocery to compare the difference. I paid 5.99 for 100 bags. The branded bags are mostly all .69 mil - the bags I bought are .6 mil So far so good, no problems with leakge, breakage, etc. We'll see how the other 95 bags go!
I use Target brand bags and have never had a problem. I've bought grocery store private label bags, assuming they were the same as Target, and in general they are not nearly as good.
I'm a fan of the bags selling at Home Depot under the Husky brand. Very durable, reasonable price.
how the hell did you get a force-flex bag to break? I swear I could put a whole apartment worth of furniture in one and those things would keep stretching to hold it...
@chersolly: What you are doing is right. You are probably not trying to stuff odd shaped items into a bag that is too small.
You know who you are out there.... trying to stuff an XL pizza box into a bag that's too small instead of just walking it your outside trash can / dumpster.
Instead of wasting money buying garbage bags, I bought a small garbage can and use grocery bags.
@mbz32190:
I do the same exact thing. For our larger trash bin in the kitchen we use the Kirkland Signature bags from Costco, which are cheap and reliable. But for every other can we use the plastic grocery bags we're gonna throw out anyway. It's the same thing with people who buy mason jars or plastic containers. When we use a jar of spaghetti or finish a container of butter we just save it for storing food.
Aldi's 30-gal. black trash bags are great. They never fail.
Wow. That reads like one of those infomercials - minus the Billy Mays.
Regular trash bags are soooo flimsy, they break 2 out of 10 times! That doesn't happen with my super duper Hefty Forceflex tall kitchen bags, rated #1 in consumer reports, Ebert gives it 2 thumbs up, and there's a compass in the stock!
I second the other posts about Costco brand trash bags. They are very cheap, and the only problem I've had is the occasional draw-strap break - but the bag itself has never failed.
@GMFish:
It's really not that complicated:
1. Buy whatever bags you want. I choose the cheapest I can get.
2. When the bag is full, tie it in the trash can.
3. Take the trash can with you to the dumpster or other garbage recepticle.
4. Invert the trash can over the garbage recepticle.
The generic bags run about $0.10 each and I've not broken any of them in as long as I can remember. But if you do, so what? The garbage has reached its interim destination.
We use Hefty leaf bags to stuff our clothes in whenever we have to evacuate if a hurricane starts to show up. We also use them to cover boxes and stuff so they won't get wet or blown out while on the road.
@gfonner: there is a difference between "costco" bags and the ones they are talking about here.
Costco bags are pretty much rebranded major manufacturer bags. They are talking about dollar store bags here.
This goes double for freezer bags. I've bought the store brand a few times and I've had the seams burst when trying to push all the air out.
Now I just go for the Glad brand bags and no more problems. It's worth the extra 30% or so.
There is no Costco anywhere near me so that's not an option. I use and love the Glad Forceflex bags. I've tried the Hefty kitchen bags but the drawstring is very much inferior on those - it doesn't pull well and the plastic at the top rips. The Forceflex bags are darn near perfect, and I buy the ones with the OdorShield - they really do help to keep odors at bay in the kitchen.
@JanetCarol: sometimes you don't have the option of putting trash in anything but a bag. when i lived in orlando the trash collection rules involved no trash cans at all - it had to be bagged and left at the curb. no, it wasn't an HOA, it was the city rules.
unfortunately with racoons, dogs and possums around this meant not getting to put the trash out the night before, i had to put it out around 5 am on trash day.
and once i even found a DUCK ripping into my trash
@nffcnnr: not all towns recycle, and many who did have been dropping it as its much more costly and dangerous to the environment due to the custic chemicals often involved to recycle than to throw it away.
And in the case of paper/glass/and aluminum, all break down relatively easy into the environment
@jonc20: Clearly you are single and live alone. I'd love to see you accomplish that feat with 2-3 children in the house, a dog, two parents and all the accompanying cleaning and cooking.
@mbz32190: i'm guessing you never had more than one cat box at a time, nor had to deal with used cat litter leaking out of a cheap bag?
Just look for the name brand that you like to use and then look for a store brand with the same "mil" number. I believe the "mil" is short for millimeters thick. I use BJs .85 mil 30 gal bags ($8-$10)
@nffcnnr: That was my first thought as well. Couldn't he have drained that last bit of maple syrup for some pancake stew?
@loudambiance: I've had the opposite experience with the flexforce. Everyone I've used for anything other than conventional garbage (like taking stuff to the salvation army, cleaning up the basement, throwing away something broken or in small pieces) it's split immediately! And for the regular garbage the drawstring top bags work just fine so why pay more for the flexforce? Maybe I'm expecting too much from a bag but in the commercial they throw away wire clothes hangers so you'd think an old holey pair of shoes wouldn't do that much damage.
@loudambiance: They only break when you put something really messy in. Try throwing some coffee grounds in the bag with your furniture, it will break instantly.
I choose my trash bags by "absolute cheapest price for most bags" and have NEVER had a problem. But I don't overfill them - when they get full, I just take them out. Who wants trash piled up on top of the bag in some kind of jenga-like tower of doom, anyway?
@SuranjanaMyrrha: There's also another part of this, I use "cheap" bags, but not the cheapest.. I've never had a problem pulling them out of my kitchen trashcan, and bringing them to my dumpster.
Then again, I have a reasonably small transcan.. more trash might require a better trashbag.
It depends on the generic or store brand you choose, I prefer the Target kitchen bags over the Glad kitchen bags. They are tougher than the name brand and the pull strings don't break as easy, plus they are way cheaper.
@Radi0logy:
When I was a kid living with my parents, we had a HUGE garbage can - one intended for outside work in the lawn.
It lasted maybe two days. Of course, that was the ONLY garbage can in the house outside of the small one in the bathroom, that did get grocery bags, and was transferred into the big one.
We also recycled paper and aluminum cans, though not plastic. It was before the whole global warming thing, and plastic recycling wasn't really available.
@mbz32190: I used to re-use plastic grocery store bags for all garbage too. I never bought (or stole, sheesh) any bags in my adult life until recently, because re-using was free and plentiful. I'd double them up, and if they had small holes in them, I'd use those ones for garbages that were mostly tissues (ie beside my bed).
But I started going all-cloth-bags right before it became trendy (back when I'd get dirty looks from some baggers for asking that they use my cloth bags), and that eventually ate through my huge supply of grocery plastic. So much so that I didn't have enough to wrap fragile items in when I moved and had to beg extras off of my non-cloth-bag using friends!
Now we only get plastic bags when my husband forgets to take cloth bags when he does some shopping, or from the occasional Target shop. We reuse those as well, but we've had to actually buy virgin plastic. The Kirkland bags have held up just fine for us in the kitchen.
@Cant_stop_the_rock: Seconded. We use the Kirkland bags in the kitchen and haven't had a single problem yet. And yes, I don't think we've had a quality issue with any Kirkland product ever.
@SuranjanaMyrrha: this might be possible in the burbs where the garbage is outside your front door or someplace where there is a trash room on every floor, but not when the trash has to go 3 floors down and then OUTSIDE. Juggling a trash can (which can be mighty heavy when full) along with my keys is not a pretty sight. Plus I don't like when bags tear in the trash can because then I have to clean the trash can...
@Radi0logy: Easy, you just take the trash out more often. I live in a 2 person house, with 3 such bins. The one in the kitchen gets the bulk of the work, and needs emptied once every 2 days. (The others get emptied less than once a week). The outside trash bin is on the way to our cars, so we never need to make a special trip to the bin. In a 4 person house you'd just empty it once a day (or slightly more), but you have twice as many people to split the duty (this is a good chore to give to kids).
@catastrophegirl - just add kittens: my worst nightmare...the target plastic bags are pretty good for holding scooped kitty litter. they rarely rip. but when I need to completely change out the 3 litter boxes you can bet I'm NOT using anything that's cheap. I don't care.
I LOVE my ForceFlex bags.. My wife made me buy generic store brand bags one time at the grocery store and nearly every one of them fell apart.
about 1/3 of the way through the box, she finally relented and went and bought the ForceFlex. The first thing that went into my new batch of ForceFlex was the store brand bags.. Good Riddance!
Buy cheap, Buy Twice!
I buy nothing but the cheapest bags. 1 out of two rips, sure, they're garbage. But if you are careful about taking it to the curb, it doesn't matter. I've never had a spill yet after about 5 years of using them.
I've only double bagged perhaps twice this year. Considering I get 100 "cheap" bags for the price of 20 of the better quality glad bags (I checked, this is WalMart's "Maximum" brand vs. Glad's similar sized bags), I'm doing pretty damn well.
I also prefer to fill the bags to less than bursting full. Makes it easier to drag to the curb. As far as the environment is concerned:
- They're WAY thinner so the amount of plastic used works out in the end (in fact, I'd say in my favour, they're THAT thin)
- Our stupid landlords require us to break down our boxes, put them in garbages bags, and place them at the curb for garbage collection
- Can't use anything but black trash bags (landlord requirement--yes, they send notes about this) and a lot of the "name brands" aren't black anymore
Really, it's just a matter of using cheap bags long enough to figure out how to use them properly. After a few months, you won't notice the difference. For real.
For outside use I use the Costco black heavy duty Lawn & Garden bags... they rock. For inside the house, like the kitchen, I have a Simple Human trash can and buy a box of 400 supply Simple Human bags. They are the best trash bags you can buy IMO. Kind of spendy, at roughly .26 per bag, but well worth it. And they fit the SH can perfectly. No overhang, no tucking, and nothing showing when the lid is closed. Good investment.
God, this is one of many lessons I've learned in life, do not buy cheap garbage bags. My favorite are sold at Tractor Supply Co. and are strong enough to hold concrete. Sure I don't use them in the house, but I use them for everything else.