Don’t Bag it Just Carry it

I was at the health food store the other week (where I had previously been chastised for not bringing my own bag) and got stuck behind a young woman who was purchasing a few sugar sticks for her tea. The shop assistant looked at her and asked: “Would you like a bag?” Of course I, and I am sure the line behind me filled with individuals clutching their own canvas bags, presumed the woman would say no.

Never assume anything. And the fact that someone would get a plastic bag for such a small amount of product when she had a purse over her shoulder much larger than the carrier bag made me think: are we just brainwashed into making stupid planet destroying choices?

As explained by reuseablebags.com, the real cost of the plastic bags handed out without a thought at stores across the land is enormous. They are made using petroleum based products that are drilled from the earth, destroy natural habitats and using up non renewable fuel resources. The manufacture of plastic bags releases carbon emissions and toxic chemicals into our atmosphere. The transport of plastic bags to those thousands of stores produces a huge carbon footprint.

Plastic bags are not good. Some would argue they are a small drop in the ocean of landfill waste but to me its one thing we can change.

A plastic bag takes almost 1000 years to disintegrate back into the earth. A canvas or cotton bag can be reused again and again making it a much more sustainable product. We can regrow cotton but we can’t regrow coal and oil. You can pick up a reusable canvas bag for a buck anywhere across the country.

You save money because the cost of producing plastic bags that are handed out for “free” is of course added to your shopping bill. Plastic bags only remain in favor because we the consumers act as though we need them. So the only way to get rid of them is to refuse to use them.

It’s simple. Consumer demand drives this country. If we demand sustainable goods we get sustainable goods. If we demand carbon footprint creating toxic fume emitting greenhouse gas accumulating goods? Well, we’ll get those too.

If nothing else makes you carry a canvas bag or I dunno, carry your purchase in your hands, think about the creatures. Annually, thousands of marine mammals die from ingesting or suffocating on plastic bags. Herd animals on land die from strangulation and suffocation as they investigate the bags that float onto farm lands.

We’re killing our fellow creatures, our planet and our brain cells. So just make this small adjustment and help the planet. If you can’t well then, what about a carbon credit for every plastic bag you use?

Remember, you are the change you want to see in the world.