Sustainable Shopping: Plastic Bags or Reusable Bags?
We’ve all been there: so close to the cashier you can taste it when you realize you left your reusable bags at home. Oof.
I can’t run to your house and grab the bags for you (I mean, I wish) but I can tell you why plastic bags are mean and nasty, give you some tips for remembering your reusables and tell you what to do when you accidentally end up with plastics.
Plastic bags can sneak up on you when you least expect 'em...
Plastic Bags: the bad, the bad and the ugly
Let’s face it. Really nothing about plastic bags is good. I’m gonna give you a brief overview of the issues but a lot of this stuff is super sciencey and complicated, so be sure to check out the hyperlinks if you want all the juicy deets.
plastic sneaks into our food, water and bodies
All plastic takes a reeeeally long time (like centuries) to break down and humans use A LOT of plastic. This means that a bunch of tiny, almost-broken-down pieces of plastic, called microplastics, surround us basically all the time.
As The Guardian's Damian Carrington explains, recent studies have found microplastics in 94% of tap water, in honey, in sugar and even raining down from the sky. Cue Chicken Little.
Although we don’t know the exact effects of microplastics on humans, we know that some chemicals in plastic can mimic hormones that could seriously mess up our insides. And we know that microplastics are super bad for other animals so the odds really don’t seem to be in our favor.
plastic poisons our wildlife friends
We’ve all seen those pictures of sad seals with plastic garbo hanging off their flippers, dissected bird stomachs stuffed with plastic or sick turtles who mistook a baggie for a jelly one too many times. You don’t need to be a scientist to know that that’s just wrong.
Journalist Elizabeth Royte of National Geographic points out that ingesting chemicals from plastic can also hurt our non-human pals in less visible ways by damaging their development and reproductive systems.
plastic gives invasive species free rides
So this is probably the most wack fact in this post: invasive species can sail hitchhiker style across the ocean using plastics as boats. Although that’s kind of fun to imagine, it's most def not fun to deal with.
This happened in Oregon in the summer of 2012 when organisms from Japan used debris from a 2011 tsunami to sneak up on the shore. Sly species like this are problems because they could upset the entire ecosystem of the places they’re invading. Thanks, but no thanks.
plastic is ugly
Plastic is just plain ugly. No one likes to see plastic baggies flying like tumbleweeds by the side of the road or washing up on the beach like v disappointing messages in bottles.
Reusable bags…are they better?
Okay, so reusable bags aren't perfect either, mostly because their production and distribution processes release GHGs. Some people even argue that reusing traditional plastic bags is better than buying reusables because of this.
But if you're like me you already have a stockpile of reusables that are dying to fulfill their purpose. No need to grab more plastic when you already have canvas! So now, the trick is remembering to bring them to the store...
How to remember
We already have enough things to remember just to, like, stay alive so how could we possibly remember to bring reusable bags to H-Mart?? Here’s how:
Don’t keep them shoved up in some random closet. Put them in your passenger seat, on your front doorknob or on your kitchen table so they won’t be AWOL when you need them.
Write a reminder at the top of your grocery list. If you’re organized enough to have a grocery list, you can be organized enough to add “BRING YOUR DANG BAGS” to the top of the list.
If your bags are lightweight, you could fold some up really small and keep them in your purse/fanny pack/satchel/whatever. This way, you’ll always be prepared for bagmergencies.
Who says you need bags anyway? You can always do it Aldi style and just lug your goodies to the car in a cart.
Rut Roh, I used a plastic bag…
Don’t pitch it! A lot of plastic bags (or the paper bags bougie places give you) are p sturdy so you can reuse them a few times.
new uses for these fellas include:
Using them as grocery bags again
Putting them in your garbage cans as liners
Designating one as the “car garbage”
Picking up after your dog with them
Transforming one into a used tissue caddie when you’re sick
Covering your bike seat with one when it's raining
Using them to cushion and wrap up breakables when packing
And basically a million other things!
Despite your best intentions to reuse, all bags die at some point. After they give out (RIP bags), do not place them in your regular recycling bin. Plastic bags have a tendency to clog up machines at basic recycling facilities, so you cannot recycle them in your curbside bin.
Instead, you’ll need to find a recycling bin made especially for plastic bags. Many chain grocery stores have these bins at the front of the store. Alternatively, you could take the bags directly to a facility that recycles plastic bags.
What are your most clever second uses for plastic bags? Tell me all about them in the comments!