BYOB: Bring Your Own Bag
Near the end of last year I was shopping and contemplating whether I would have my groceries put in paper or plastic. As I was pondering this decision I passed some reusable bags that were on sale right by the counter. I decided to try them out.
At first my success rate at using the bags was about fifty percent. I kept leaving them at home which didn’t do me any good. My fix for this was to make it my New Year’s resolution to use very little to no plastic shopping bags for the next year. As with most resolutions I started strong, but was soon forgetting to bring the bags all the time.
My turning point came after I read an article in the Best Life magazine called PlasticOcean written by Susan Casey. The article discussed our over abundant use of plastic. The fact is that most recycled plastic can not be reused for the same purpose it was originally made for, but is usually made into something else. Also many plastics contain chemicals such as perfluorooctanic acid (PFOA), poly-brominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and bisphenol A (BPA) which have recently received a lot of news coverage. The section of the article that affected me on an emotional level was when she wrote about the area in the Pacific Ocean known as the “Eastern Garbage Patch”. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer has estimated that the area, nearly covered with floating plastic debris, is roughly the size of Texas.
This article made me reevaluate my reasons for deciding to bring my own bags shopping with me. Before it was just something I took pride in doing. Now it is something I feel I need to do. My biggest obstacle was remembering to put them in the car in the first place. I find myself now looking in the back seat before I take off to go shopping to make sure they are there. I have also found myself leaving my cart of goodies by the cash registers to go back to my car to bring the bags in. It is now taking on more of a life habit and getting much easier for me.
In my experience, the bags can hold more items and heavier items than the regular plastic bags. This has made my transportation of groceries much easier. Before every other grocery trip I would have that one bag that would rip and those grocery items would be all over the ground or my kitchen floor. This nasty phenomenon hasn’t happened since I have switched to the reusable bags. I now have quite a few of these bags which I tend to use for more than just shopping. I have used them for an overnight bag and also gift bags. They may not be as pretty as gift bags, but they can be a lot more useful.
While I may not be saving the world with my stand to not use plastic shopping bags, maybe I am stopping some of them from ending up in our landfills and oceans. Hopefully I can also influence more people to switch.