Reusable grocery bags

One of the things I'll do here is share some of the things my wife and I are doing to "green up" our life. The most recent is to eliminate (or at least reduce) our use of plastic grocery bags. We purchased these reusable bags from 1 Bag at a Time. These bags are made from 100% polypropylene (PP or plastic #5) - it is like a thin, canvassy type of material, sturdy but flexible. We used them for the first time today and they are great. They fit much more than a typical plastic or paper grocery bag, and the longer handles make them easy to carry. They are fairly inexpensive and actually look pretty nice too! There are several other companies that make these reusable bags, so shop around.

Some of the stats regarding plastic bag usage are staggering (by the way, I haven't really researched it, but apparently paper grocery bags are not better for the environment than plastic bags and may in fact be worse!). I've read several reports of how many plastic bags are used annually worldwide, some estimates reaching the trillions! Try picturing that. Most of these bags end up in landfills, where they do not biodegrade well. There is so much information about the benefits of using reusable bags out there on the Internet, I really encourage you to do some searching.

If you do use the grocery store's plastic or paper bags, instead of immediately throwing them out, find another use for them. For example, my mom had a good suggestion - she uses her Target bags as trash bags for small trash containers. That way, they get at least one more use before hitting the landfills.