Living Green - Reusable Shopping Bags

 Living Green is about making choices and taking action to lead healthier and more sustainable lives. It is an alternative for a healthier home and environment.  We make choices in our day-to-day lives that reduce our impact on the environment. Going green requires a conscientious effort from each of us.  You can start adding a few “Green Habits” to your routine every week. “Going green” will eventually become “Living green”. Living green will be a lifestyle. It will become second nature. After practicing so long you won’t have a second thought about the green habits.

          While looking for green ideas I came upon this great site by UL (Underwriters Laboratories) listing 100 Easy Ways to Live Greener.  I am going to try to share some of these ideas here from time to time. I printed the list and have it hanging in my kitchen.

The first habit on the list is “Carry reusable bags with you anytime you shop”. How easy is that! The most important part of owning reusable shopping bags is remembering to take them with you to the store. I have no problem with that habit. My reusable bags are always in the car. I just can’t remember to take them into the store.  If you can make reusable bags part of your shopping routine, some stores will reward you with a refund of 5-10 cents per bag, depending on the store. Another advantage is not having to store all those disposable plastic bags until you carry them to the recycle bin, or creating excess trash if you choose not to be green. I love carrying in a bag of groceries (reusable bag, of course) without fear that the contents will not fall through a hole in the bag and onto the ground. So whether you are green or not, there are some advantages to the reusable bags.

Most grocery store baggers don't even think about using lots of plastic bags. They drop a box of cereal in one plastic bag as they reach for another to hold a couple of apples and a bunch of bananas. The six pack of pop will go alone in one too, as will the dish soap. The laundry soap gets not one bag of its own, but it gets double bagged. Sure, we use some of these bags a second time for garbage bags, doggy poo, dirty laundry bags, but millions of them end up in landfills. They also end up hanging from trees, flying in the breeze, floating in our lakes and rivers. They end up wrapped around wild bird legs and in the bellies of turtles. Think about it. We can do better than this.Another great site 50 Reasons to Go Green with Reusable Shopping Bags 

I have all different kinds of reusable bags. I have purchased them at the stores when I did not bring enough with me (usually at a cost of $1 to $2 each). I have made them from feed sacks. I have stitched up the bottom of t-shirts and cut off the sleeves to create shopping bags. Reusable bags save more than 700 bags over the span of their lifetime. Paper and plastic bags both come at great cost to the environment. When asked which type I prefer, I pull out my reusable shopping bags. I think it is “cool” to carry reusable shopping bags.