The Weekday Vegetarian Eco Tip of the Week

Here it is. My favorite, super easy, super important Weekday Vegetarian Eco Tip. Bring your own grocery bags to the store. Sounds simple, but the fact is most people still don’t do it.

As the debate heats up in cities everywhere about whether or not to ban plastic bags, the more I realize what a wasteful and selfish society we have become. We expect the store to provide a disposable bag for us to tote our groceries home. For most of us our groceries sit in that bag for no more than about 30 minutes. People say that they recycle them or use them for other purposes. They still end up in a land fill within a short time, and most people don’t recycle them, especially plastic bags. If you are like most people you have piles of them stashed around the house and eventually, and maybe even with slight guilt you throw half of them in the trash.

The facts below are from www.reusablebags.com (by the way, this is a great site. I recommend checking it out.)
• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.

• According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.

• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)

(Some good news)
• Each high quality reusable shopping bag you use has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime.

Get in the habit of keeping several bags in your car. That way you will never forget them. Another tip is to keep a small compact bag in your purse or front seat of the car for the small purchases.

Paper or plastic? No thanks! I brought my own reusable bags.