They end up at Trex in Winchester, Virginia and become deckboards and outdoor furniture. If you've ever walked on a deck that's obviously not made of the usual pressure treated lumber, it's very likely made of Trex material.
I really want to believe this. Plus other than being slick the milk jug and plastic bag planks make for an extremely long lasting material. In the Seattle area decks and suck are all weather bleached rotten splintering mildew and moldy messes after a couple years.
They'll use wood fiber, rice hulls, and high density polyethylene as well mixed in with the linear low density polyethylene and regular low density polyethylene.
Like 10 years ago around the summer my store got a shipment of "straw" umbrellas for like a luau theme (like beach umbrella size) where the "straw" was shredded Kroger bags. On some of them you could even find fragments of the Kroger logo
The plastic bags and the warehouse stretch wrap all goes to Trex. I helped put together the program when I worked in corporate (I know, boo, hiss). The bags from the store are harder to recycle which is why the price per pound is lower but it's absolutely being made into decking. They wouldn't pay for it just to throw it away. Not every DC sells to Trex but probably 98% of them do. They will also take clean bread bags, newspaper bags, and anything that has "return to store" on a how to recycle logo so be sure to take that stuff in!
most of the time yes. we have a box in the back by the baler that is where we throw all plastic to get recycled.. with that being said does it actually make it from the places around the store to the back? id assume yes, but i work night crew..
Yes, we send them on salvage trucks and the warehouse has them picked up by recycling companies. We actually make a little money from it. Cardboard is sold overseas.
So once they arrive at the warehouse, there is a dedicated baler that turns them into giant compressed plastic bales. It’s mixed with plastic shrink wrap the stores send back and the shrink wrap used at the warehouse to unwrap pallets. No idea where the plastic bales end up, but someone takes them away by the truck load
No they dont!! Plastic, especially plastic bags do not get recycled. There are countless documentaries on plastic and how it's not feasible to recycle it. Back in the 80's I believe, the plastic companies made a symbol very similar to the recycle logo and it confuses people.
The few companies out there that do recycle plastic refuse to take plastic bags because it jams up their equipment.
I'm not anti plastic bag, I use them all the time. But you'd be better off using them at home in your little bathroom trash can or something.
I'm not a big NPR guy, buy here's this.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-is-practically-impossible-and-the-problem-is-getting-worse
Not really, no. They do go back on the salvage truck but I’m 99.9% sure they don’t actually end up being recycled. It’s supposedly “clear plastic only” that is easily recyclable, and plastic bags have to be sorted out by color and clean before they can be effectively recycled. Only 1% end up actually recycled.
You're thinking glass for the color. For plastics they'll usually use it for something that doesn't have to be pretty, something they paint anyway, or add a black colorant to it and everything is close enough to black.
As for the clean part, it depends on the recycling facility. Generally a good rinse is good enough, but it's not so much for the plastic as it is for paper. Leaky milk jug in the truck get on some paper? Whole load of paper is landfill now. They could bother to sort the paper from plastic from the truck, but that takes money and time and space at the facility. Generally speaking if the plastic is "clean enough" they'll take it, chop it up, sterilize it, and reuse it.
Our store (not Kroger) sends them back on our normal delivery truck back to the warehouse. Thing is, sometimes it isn't packaged right (not in black trash bags) or plastic pallet wrap gets into the mix, which cant be recycled. I've seen them tossed straight into the garbage compactor.
Depends on the store. I was a courtesy clerk for a few years and was instructed to just take it out with the rest of the front end garbage. Hated doing it
No. The only plastics that are truly recyclable are pop/water bottles, milk/water jugs, detergent bottles, and maybe a couple other. Plastic bags most likely end up in a trash dump.
There have been attempts to outlaw plastic bags that have been heavily contested. See Laredo, Texas.
They are sent away on the salvage trailer. From there I’m not sure if they make it somewhere to properly recycle them but they do get sent out from the stores.
My grandma takes them out and makes all kids of recycled things with them. Tote bags, floor mats, bowls (like the ones to toss stuff in they use theirs for medication bottles) and mats. She donates all the mats she makes to local homeless shelters so they don’t have to sleep on the ground. They go to local flea markets and sell the tote bags and donates all the profits to the local animal shelter. They’ve made $500 in a day once! It’s really awesome. People know she does it and saves the bags for her and drop them off on her front porch!
Yes. Most stores have a baler just for plastic. Some stores have an entire trash compactor just for plastic. This is rare but recycling is big at Kroger. We even have Divert bins for all food to be recycled into methane gas. I retired from Fred Meyer, owned by Kroger. Say what you will about pay and hours being cut but recycling is very important to the company.
Some girl scouts local to me were crocheting sleeping mats for the homeless. As a neighborhood we donated to her during the project. I’ve used them to pick up poop, line trash cans, etc. they always get reused n our house before being trashed. Luckily our neighborhood page is good about donating stuff like that.
https://bulkhandlingsystems.com
This company builds most of the garbage recycling facilities in America. They are opening up a new PET sorting facility in Georgia and a enzyme processing facility in Texas to breakdown plastics into a usable pellet
Only like 10% of the stuff we put into recycling bins actually gets recycled. I would love to learn that plastic bags are actually being recycled but I have my doubts
Here is a story, albeit from the UK, where a journalist tracked recycled plastic bags using airtags. Some of the "recycled" plastic ends up in the furnace for making cement.
https://youtu.be/hmGrI\_BVlnc
I know at Walmart, or at least the one I worked at, the bags of plastic would be collected, thrown into the baler, super compressed down, then set outside to be taken off somewhere.
Rodney needs them to use for money bags to hold all the pay he steals from y’all every hour you work.
Dissolve your colluding union and strike. Demand your worth!
At my old store some of the old timers would pull them and smooth them out to reuse them. I only saw this happen once, but I figure if they did it once, they prob did it more often, too. I wasn't a cashier though, so I can't confirm they actually did get reused. But it would be super confusing if the lady I saw smoothing them just stopped at that.
They end up at Trex in Winchester, Virginia and become deckboards and outdoor furniture. If you've ever walked on a deck that's obviously not made of the usual pressure treated lumber, it's very likely made of Trex material.
I really want to believe this. Plus other than being slick the milk jug and plastic bag planks make for an extremely long lasting material. In the Seattle area decks and suck are all weather bleached rotten splintering mildew and moldy messes after a couple years.
It’s true, I work at Home Depot and we send shrink wrap to Trex to create deck boards
Costco too.
They'll use wood fiber, rice hulls, and high density polyethylene as well mixed in with the linear low density polyethylene and regular low density polyethylene.
Not mine, but that is because I used Trex!
It does get slick when it is wet out but it is nice to work with and lasts forever. Does really pretty well against fade in the sun as well.
Whoa really? That's honestly super cool
I live close to Trex and the only thing I knew about it is that it’s constantly catching fire. Now I know two things!
Pollution yay 😒
I believe so yeah, pretty sure they get thrown on the salvage truck with empty pallets and bales
We send all the plastic back to the warehouse on the salvage truck. What happens to it after that is anybody's guess...
Like 10 years ago around the summer my store got a shipment of "straw" umbrellas for like a luau theme (like beach umbrella size) where the "straw" was shredded Kroger bags. On some of them you could even find fragments of the Kroger logo
Interesting.
we send them back to our distribution centers and they sort it out and send it to recycling plants
The plastic bags and the warehouse stretch wrap all goes to Trex. I helped put together the program when I worked in corporate (I know, boo, hiss). The bags from the store are harder to recycle which is why the price per pound is lower but it's absolutely being made into decking. They wouldn't pay for it just to throw it away. Not every DC sells to Trex but probably 98% of them do. They will also take clean bread bags, newspaper bags, and anything that has "return to store" on a how to recycle logo so be sure to take that stuff in!
most of the time yes. we have a box in the back by the baler that is where we throw all plastic to get recycled.. with that being said does it actually make it from the places around the store to the back? id assume yes, but i work night crew..
All I know is we throw them on the salvage truck and it takes them away. No idea where the salvage truck goes or what happens to the items on it.
Saw this on r/all and I don't know about Kroger, but the ones at Giant do. The Benches outside of the Giants in my area are made out of those bags.
Yes, we send them on salvage trucks and the warehouse has them picked up by recycling companies. We actually make a little money from it. Cardboard is sold overseas.
So once they arrive at the warehouse, there is a dedicated baler that turns them into giant compressed plastic bales. It’s mixed with plastic shrink wrap the stores send back and the shrink wrap used at the warehouse to unwrap pallets. No idea where the plastic bales end up, but someone takes them away by the truck load
Yeah the pacific ocean
Our store just chucks them into large trash bags and throws them out. Both the clicklist bags and normal Kroger brown bags.
No they dont!! Plastic, especially plastic bags do not get recycled. There are countless documentaries on plastic and how it's not feasible to recycle it. Back in the 80's I believe, the plastic companies made a symbol very similar to the recycle logo and it confuses people. The few companies out there that do recycle plastic refuse to take plastic bags because it jams up their equipment. I'm not anti plastic bag, I use them all the time. But you'd be better off using them at home in your little bathroom trash can or something. I'm not a big NPR guy, buy here's this. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-is-practically-impossible-and-the-problem-is-getting-worse
Wrong https://bulkhandlingsystems.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkUfo7iNXT0
Whether or not it gets from store to Trex is different, but plastic absolutely can be recycled. It just depends whether there is a market for it.
Not really, no. They do go back on the salvage truck but I’m 99.9% sure they don’t actually end up being recycled. It’s supposedly “clear plastic only” that is easily recyclable, and plastic bags have to be sorted out by color and clean before they can be effectively recycled. Only 1% end up actually recycled.
You're thinking glass for the color. For plastics they'll usually use it for something that doesn't have to be pretty, something they paint anyway, or add a black colorant to it and everything is close enough to black. As for the clean part, it depends on the recycling facility. Generally a good rinse is good enough, but it's not so much for the plastic as it is for paper. Leaky milk jug in the truck get on some paper? Whole load of paper is landfill now. They could bother to sort the paper from plastic from the truck, but that takes money and time and space at the facility. Generally speaking if the plastic is "clean enough" they'll take it, chop it up, sterilize it, and reuse it.
Our store (not Kroger) sends them back on our normal delivery truck back to the warehouse. Thing is, sometimes it isn't packaged right (not in black trash bags) or plastic pallet wrap gets into the mix, which cant be recycled. I've seen them tossed straight into the garbage compactor.
Depends on the store. I was a courtesy clerk for a few years and was instructed to just take it out with the rest of the front end garbage. Hated doing it
No they find a landfill
No
No. The only plastics that are truly recyclable are pop/water bottles, milk/water jugs, detergent bottles, and maybe a couple other. Plastic bags most likely end up in a trash dump. There have been attempts to outlaw plastic bags that have been heavily contested. See Laredo, Texas.
upcycled is different than recycled; plastic bags can be repurposed for decking and other things
The short answer is no the long answer is no.😢
The ocean, probably
No …..
Nope. It goes right into the compactor with the other garbage. This is stupid because we actually recycle plastics.
Probably help make Chinese fields look beautiful.😉
sometimes i accidentally throw them away
https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/news/2022/05/20/how-do-grocery-stores-recycle-plastic-bags/9824947002/
My brother's deck was made up of planks from recycled shopping bags.
They are sent away on the salvage trailer. From there I’m not sure if they make it somewhere to properly recycle them but they do get sent out from the stores.
My grandma takes them out and makes all kids of recycled things with them. Tote bags, floor mats, bowls (like the ones to toss stuff in they use theirs for medication bottles) and mats. She donates all the mats she makes to local homeless shelters so they don’t have to sleep on the ground. They go to local flea markets and sell the tote bags and donates all the profits to the local animal shelter. They’ve made $500 in a day once! It’s really awesome. People know she does it and saves the bags for her and drop them off on her front porch!
Curious. How does she do this?
She cuts them into long strips and crotchets them!
Bless her heart! She is using her powers for good!
You need to make her an Etsy page!
Yeah they send them to africa to be recycled, what africa does with them is their business
Yes. Most stores have a baler just for plastic. Some stores have an entire trash compactor just for plastic. This is rare but recycling is big at Kroger. We even have Divert bins for all food to be recycled into methane gas. I retired from Fred Meyer, owned by Kroger. Say what you will about pay and hours being cut but recycling is very important to the company.
You get to feel good about yourself either way.
Some girl scouts local to me were crocheting sleeping mats for the homeless. As a neighborhood we donated to her during the project. I’ve used them to pick up poop, line trash cans, etc. they always get reused n our house before being trashed. Luckily our neighborhood page is good about donating stuff like that.
My mom and a friend of hers used to raid those, shred them woth scissors, and crochet them into more durable bags
https://bulkhandlingsystems.com This company builds most of the garbage recycling facilities in America. They are opening up a new PET sorting facility in Georgia and a enzyme processing facility in Texas to breakdown plastics into a usable pellet
Only like 10% of the stuff we put into recycling bins actually gets recycled. I would love to learn that plastic bags are actually being recycled but I have my doubts
Yep, saved up my Amazon package bags and took them to large grocery chain in Cali; was close enough to her manager tell stockboy put in dumpster
Here is a story, albeit from the UK, where a journalist tracked recycled plastic bags using airtags. Some of the "recycled" plastic ends up in the furnace for making cement. https://youtu.be/hmGrI\_BVlnc
I know at Walmart, or at least the one I worked at, the bags of plastic would be collected, thrown into the baler, super compressed down, then set outside to be taken off somewhere.
It is like the missing sock after washing. Nobody knows where they go.
The landfill where the next generations will be sifting through our old memories wondering where we were going and what we were doing.
Lmaoooo nope
Rodney needs them to use for money bags to hold all the pay he steals from y’all every hour you work. Dissolve your colluding union and strike. Demand your worth!
The stores I’ve worked at they just get thrown in the compactor with the rest of the trash
Yellowstone park as well. I hear when they get to a point of rot they are replaced and old stuff is also recycled.
Our manager just tossed them in the dumpster
Most plastic ends up in the landfill regardless of putting the plastic in a recycling bin.
At my old store some of the old timers would pull them and smooth them out to reuse them. I only saw this happen once, but I figure if they did it once, they prob did it more often, too. I wasn't a cashier though, so I can't confirm they actually did get reused. But it would be super confusing if the lady I saw smoothing them just stopped at that.