She always brings her own bag!
GREEN TIP: When you go shopping bring your own bag!
Most anywhere you shop stores are selling canvas bags designed to hold your purchases. Byerly’s sells them. One nice feature about their bags is that they fold into little flat squares so you can keep them under your car seat or other handy spots. An even better feature is the 5-cent donation Lunds and Byerly's makes to Second Harvest Heartland for every reusable bag they use to bag your groceries. I also found some for sale at Kowalski’s Market, Target, Whole Foods and Lakewinds Natural Foods Co-op. Lakewinds not only sells reusable bags, they offer a nickel-per-bag refund if you bring your own.
Obviously, bringing your own bags is ideal but if you don’t, it gets a little tricky. Your choices are paper, plastic or carry everything in your arms.
According to the Institute of Lifecycle Environmental Assessment (ILEA), an environmental advocacy organization headquartered in Seattle, “two plastic bags use 13% less total energy to make than one paper bag.” And, “since plastic bags are normally much thinner and lighter than comparable paper bags, it would take at least seven 45-foot trucks of paper bags to deliver the quantity of bags contained in one 45-foot truckload of plastic bags. Consequently, the use of plastic bags reduces road traffic, the resulting air pollution, and truck fuel consumption.”
If you’re reusing plastic bags and wear-and-tear has rendered them ineffective, recycle them. Plastic bags can’t be recycled through most cities’ recycling programs but the Twin Cities-based It’s in the Bag plastic bag recycling program has plenty of convenient sites to drop off your used bags. Plastic bags collected by It’s in the Bag are sorted by adults with developmental disabilities at Merrick Inc. (a non-profit organization) and then sent to Trex Company. Trex, a Winchester, VA-based manufacturer, processes the bags to create construction materials used in decks and backyard patios. According to them, each Trex decking board (16-feet long, 2 x 6 inches) uses approximately 2,250 plastic bags.
In a perfect world we would all have a stash of hemp or organic cotton bags (or a beautifully sequined silvery bag) and bring them every time we went to the grocery store.
Comments
I was at Ikea today and noticed they have jumped on this bandwagon as well. It's been months since I was there and at that time, I could purchase disposable plastic bags to carry my purchases. Today I was happy to see the reusable kind for sale instead.
I always ask for paper when I forget my bags. I think I will have to start using plastic and recycling. Thanks for good tips in a short read.
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