The more I think about it, the more it bothers me. How many times in my life have I gone shopping and received a plastic shopping bag just to throw it out once I got home. What a waste of resources and energy. The last few years I began to refuse bags for small purchases I make. It’s always met with a “are you serious” look from the cashier. If I can carry the item without any problem, then a bag is out of the question. If it’s going to need a bag, I bring my own. I feel good about using less, especially bags.
Grocery shopping is likely the worst offender in my case. We try to reduce the amount of items we buy, but groceries are a necessity. Many grocers now offer a reusable bag for purchase for a reasonable price. I’m horribly surprised that not everyone uses these, but I am happy to see more and more people picking up this habit. If you do happen to use these plastics, many supermarkets are also providing a place to recycle them as well. Take advantage of the service. By us using these reusable bags, we have saved about 250 grocery bags a year by a conservative estimate.
One other thing you can do is to reuse the small bags used for fruits and veggies. I have never seen anyone else doing this at the local shops, but it was bugging me that we were using fresh bags every time we bought apples, only to go home unpack them and discard the bag. We now stuff these bags back into the reusable grocery bags for our next trip to the grocer. It’s a small thing, but like everything else, it adds up.
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