Feb 10 2009
Everything is wrong with plastic bags!
For the longest time, I would collect all the plastic bags that I brought my groceries home in, bring them back to the store on my next grocery shopping trip, throw them in the recycling bin out front, smile and feel good about myself, because I was recycling and doing the right thing!
One day while collecting my plastic bags, smiling from ear to ear, I was told by a reliable source, (my mate) that it was not ‘green’ to recycle plastic bags! Huh?!? I’m recycling, how am I not being green? Well, as it turns out, he was right, it is very rare that a plastic bag is recycled into another plastic bag! Reason being, that it is more expensive to recycle one plastic bag than it is to make a new one. There was a time that plastic bags were thought to be more environmentally friendly than the paper bags, as it takes 14 million trees to make the 10 billion paper bags that consumers use annually, but as it turns out neither one is good for the environment, at all!
So, what’s the alternative? Bring your own bag! I know that seems like a pain in the backside, but just like any ‘green change’, it’s just as simple as changing your habits! Buy 10 tote bags, if you purchase them at the grocery store itself, they cost a buck each, or you can usually purchase them cheaper at garage sales or thrift stores.
Keep the bags in your car readily available for your next grocery store trip. Now, here’s the tricky part (at least for me), you have to remember to put them back into your car on the way out the door! I know it seems simple, but it really is the hard part!
This is a great alternative to using plastic bags or paper bags, the cost to you is under $10 but the cost for the environment is priceless!
~Wind
I love those shopping bags! I use them for everything, Im even using one as a purse currently. They are cheap and green, what else could you want?
I use one for a purse too! lol
I’m with ya. Did the same thing, took those plastic bags bag to the store, though I would always ask for paper. Long ago, the first time being green was trying to get popular (and it didn’t make it, cept for us earthy folks), renewable, and reuseable was thought to be better. Thus, paper was still better than plastic. Some stores though didn’t have paper and soooo, you had to get plastic. I carried hand made cloth bags and folks in the stores were get miffed when I asked them to use them. So they would bag in plastic and hand to me saying here, you can put that in your cloth bag……..DAHH!! I would take stuff out, put in my bag and leave. They just thought I was being difficult. Sadly, I got out of the habit. I need to put canvas/cloth bags back in my car.
Good post
Sandy
I take canvas bags to most of the places I shop, but there is one store from which I still get plastic–mainly because it seems to me that it’d be more green to reuse a plastic shopping bag as a garbage bag than to have to buy bags specifically for the purpose, we have to get our garbage bags somewhere, and theirs are pretty reliable.
It’s hard to strike a balance, isn’t it?
Hiya!
Great post!
I live in Sweden and since I was a kid the plastic bag have served mainly as a garbage bag in the kitchen. That is what I though the whole world did *lol* It’s either that or for returning lemonade bottles
If you bring your own plastic bag from your last visit to the store, some might call you an old lady *s* I see quite a few using the cloth bags, that’s great. If your in to plastic, a multi pack would be the best. I’ve never heard about anyone buying one of those for shopping purpose though…
I wanna get one of those cloth bags, pref with a good quote on it