It is a new week and I have a new green challenge. This week, the task is to try and eliminate the use of plastic bags. Specifically, we will try to not bring any additional plastic bags home and will attempt to not use plastic bags in a wasteful manner in our house. I guess I never thought about how many plastic bags are used throughout the day, but I would guess it is relatively high and Ashley wants us to do our part to reduce this number.
Although I have not researched this as of yet, I suspect that this will be an easy way for us to reduce our footprint in a big way. It seems like anytime a person goes into any kind of store, a person has an opportunity to collect a plastic bag. If a guy runs into the gas station to grab a Coke and Snickers, they want to give you a bag. What happens to that bag? I would imagine that most often it goes directly into the garbage. A simple ‘No thanks’ can likely add up to thousands of bags over a lifetime.
We already bring canvass bags to the grocery store, but I will try to be more conscious of the plastic we take away. Another thing that I know Ashley wants us to accomplish with this is to minimize the use of garbage bags. We do have some fairly large bags that end up in the garbage that could probably hold our garbage. Cat litter and dog food bags are things that will work marvelously for us.
Another large change in the Guygoesgreen household and I am looking forward to learning and changing. Please let me know in the comment area below what you do to conserve plastic bags.
great plan! We have vowed to get rid of plastic bottles in our house as much as possible! We reuse as many of our plastic bags as possible and have stopped taking them in…I find once you commit to “no more” it becomes second nature…
That is what I am finding with many of these challenges… just a small change in HABIT can make an enormous impact over time. Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
Ooo, fabulous challenge; and one that is right up my street! Good luck with this; like you say, you’ll be amazed how much plastic comes into your life; but you’re taking steps to reduce it, so that’s great.
Good luck!
Mrs. Green, thanks for the input and I will try to keep my bag usage down. Let me know any tips that you have!
Research has shown that customers are much more likely to re-use high quality bags than plastic carrier bags. Therefore a high re-use rate means that your bag becomes a walking advert, being seen over and over again. Furthermore the environment benefits too.