Remove labels from grocery plastic bags

Question

Buying groceries in modern times consists in:

1. Putting the thing in a thin plastic bag
2. Place it in an electronic scale
3. Print a label with the price and a bar code.
4. Stick it to the plastic bag

I want to figure out a way of removing the label from each bag after bringing them home, so that next time I go the market I can use the same plastic bag instead of having a new one each time I want to buy something — as that plastic will probably end up in the ocean.

The issue is, most combinations of plastic bag + sticky label seem to be pretty much inseparable, and even careful and patient attempts to remove the label cause the bag to tear with the label.

What are good hacks to remove the sticker from those bags?

Answer 1

Besides taking care to not stick the label very well (try to stick only a corner, if possible, but you need to be careful to not lose it before paying), I don't have any other idea for the flimsy bags. They are just not meant to be reusable.

But since nobody mentioned it yet: the best alternative is to buy (or make) some cloth/mesh reusable bags.

In my European country, after the ban on plastic bags and mandatory paying for the flimsy bio-degradable ones, many supermarkets offer the option to buy once mesh reusable bags that you can wash; some have a tag in a corner where you can stick the label, but if not, there's no problem to remove a sticker label from them.

Answer 2

As for removing labels from these bags, I’m afraid I must agree with other writers here - apart from label-stacking or painting over the bar code with a sharpie, there’s little you can do, the glue bond between label and bag is just so much sturdier than the bags themselves.

I haven’t used any of these flimsy bags in quite some time - but I am from a country where they are “questionable” (yay environmentalist parties) and stores must offer alternatives, either paper or reusable bags (scales with a tare function help).

That said, even before I got creative. My favorite method was to weight the items, place them in an old fashioned wicker basked and lightly stick the labels next to another either on the rim or the handle. Cashiers could easily check the contents of the basket (if items were placed in orderly clusters and not stacked), compare them to the stickers and run one sticker after the next over the scanner. I especially love that in combination with the self-checkout via smartphone scanner, because the produce gets handled less (just goes into the basket at the shop and in the fridge at home) and is packed properly and safely.

Caveat: This doesn’t work at self-checkout stations with scales, just saying. For those I have reusable bags or you could repurpose the flimsy ones, because there won’t be a cashier wondering about the stacks of labels.

Technically you will be paying just a tiny amount of extra money for the old labels (extra weight).

Answer 3

In order to remove the label from the bag, the bag must be made from a material strong enough to resist the ripping forces. The free bags for vegetables in the shops (they are the ones which usually get labels) are made for the sole purpose to be cheap, so your task is doomed from the beginning. Please remember that those bags have such a low quality that they rip even before you finish adding the vegetables. Sometimes they get destroyed as soon as you want to "separate" them from the other bags on the roll - so even before you start adding vegetables.

If you want to reuse those bags, here are some ideas:

• add the label to the vegetables, not to the bag - if the vegetables support that; potatoes are OK, lettuce is not much OK;
• use the bags with labels as trash bags for smaller items.

Occasionally, I do not use a bag at all, e.g. for bananas, watermelons (if they are clean), "items" from which I buy only one piece etc. In these cases, the label goes directly to the item.

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An alternative solution is to shop at the places where the only weighing is done by the cashier, or by self-checkout. In these cases, there are no labels at all.