It all started when I noticed a surplus of approximately 250 plastic bags in my house. Now, I've got uses for plastic bags. Poopie diapers, lunch totes, and packaging buffer are all valid uses in my book. But I could not re-use them quickly enough. And once the pile gets past 200, there's no hope of keeping them in check. They start to reproduce and the next thing you know, an entire closet is filled with plastic bags.
I started buying the black recycle bags from the grocery store. But I'd leave them in the car the next time I'd go shopping (and you know I'm not making a trip out to the car with 2 kids to get them) so I'd "punish" myself by buying a few more of those bags. Good thing they are only a dollar! Now I've got a slew of those things in both of my cars.
Then my strategy changed to: "Please fill each bag as much as you possibly can". This worked for me. Except then the plastic bags are so banged up and ripped that they must be thrown out instead of reused.
My girlfriend's strategy is to ask the cashier to put each item right back into her cart after it is scanned. No bags of any type. She makes several trips back and forth from her car to her house. My initial thought was, "Well, if I was shopping for just myself I could do it too". But I challenged myself to try it and it makes me feel so good! By the time I get out to the car, my black recycle bags are waiting for me so it's not a big deal.
Last month I bought a vinyl red bag that folds up really tiny in my purse for $2.50. I can't tell you how many times I'd get home with a couple of bags from different stores and kick myself for not remembering my red bag. But today was different; I went to 4 stores in a strip mall and just kept tossing my purchases in that bag. It's huge!
It feels good to REJECT the plastic store bags. Just say NO!
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2 comments:
We use our cloth bags for grocery shopping. We usually remember to take them with us without a problem. They are kept where we can grab them when we head out the door. We keep a couple in my husband's truck all the time. We actually got to the point where we ran out of plastic bags! I use them for the trash cans in the house. What we don't use goes back to the store in the recycle containers they have near the doors. When we are low on plastic bags, we deliberately "forget" our cloth bags. LOL! We recycle a lot in out big blue trash bins. The garbage can is never full on garbage pickup day.
I love the wegmans cloth bags and I even use them at tops! I have gotten to the point now where I rarely forget them they are in the back of the van in a cute little basket. I feel really good every time I use them :) Where did you get that red one?
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