Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Bag the Bag

The one small change that everyone can make to help the environment is to stop using plastic bags. We are finally into the habit of taking tote bags to stores... and really, I have no idea why we didn't start doing this YEARS ago! The totes carry 3-4 times as much as 1 plastic bag which means we only have to take 1 (sometimes 2) trips from the car to the kitchen! It rocks. Plus, we don't have a huge bag of saved plastic bags taking over our pantry anymore.

I just ordered some reusable produce bags that I recently discovered. They are super light weight cotton that can be washed and reused for produce, bulk grains, and nuts. Since they are cheaper the more you buy I asked around and ordered some for my friends too. I'm so excited because we finally don't have plastic store bags coming into the house anymore (we're getting better at actually remembering to use our totes), and NOW we have a solution for all the crappy thin plastic produce bags. I can't wait to start using them!

Check out this video hosted by Edward Norton.


Need some more convincing? Take a look at the facts here. Seriously, no more excuses... bag the bag. Thankfully, many stores sell their own reusable bags now. Here are some links for where you can find reusable bags online:

www.ecobags.com
www.reusablebags.com
www.greenconceptonline.com (super cute but pricey)

I can go on and on about the impact plastic has to our planet, and our own health... but I will save that for another post!

3 comments:

  1. Glad that you found the "Strange Days" show - it was 2 full hours of completely eye opening information. Things that are SO simple to change. Nice Job!

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  2. Actually I haven't watched National Geographic's Strange Days yet, but I have it coming on Netflix. I checked to see if it would be airing on TV again but couldn't find it... if anyone hears of it coming back on please let me know!

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  3. Great blog! In Italy, the grocery stores require that you pay for plastic bags when you check out. I think it's .50 euro per bag. It's not much but it makes people want to cram as much stuff into each bag as possible.

    The US, who seems to think we have unlimited resources and no waste problems, could learn a lot from Europe.

    Did you know that the fast food restaurants charge .10 euros for condiments like ketchup packets? In the US, we are often handed a huge handful of those little packets, and many just get tossed unused.

    They also have recycling bins all over the Italy. Recycling is the easiest thing ever out there.

    Oh and don't even get me started about gas prices. In London, they pay over the equivalent of $13 per gallon! So imagine how they react when they hear of all the American's crying because the gas prices have gone up to $4.00 per gallon to feed their oversized SUV's.

    Crazy! I'm going to book mark you blog, and I hope lots of people learn great things from it!

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