SNL – United Way
okay, today, instead of telling a funny story or talking about my bff whitney, i’m actually going to make this post worth while.
recently, i’ve noticed the bottom shelf of my kitchen pantry filling with plastic bags. this is for two reasons: 1) lack of routine poop-scooping in the back yard recently, and 2) trips to the grocery store.
i’ve been thinking about the number of plastic bags i bring home from each trip to the store and it is ridiculous. there is a drop off bin in the store to bring back your bags to be re-used, but it is slightly hidden and definitely is not used they way it should be compared to the number of bags that leave that place.
there are lots of things that we use that can be recycled. plastic bags from the store (or anywhere) are not one of them. those go in the dump and stay there for a long, long, long time. it seems absurd to me that plastic bags are even allowed to be used anymore at this point. i think of plastic bags like i thought of mcdonald’s foam containers for their nasty food (remember those colored foam boxes?).
anyway, the less people have a need for the plastic bags, the more likely they are to become on the endangered list.
i am starting a challenge to all of you and hopefully you will spread the word and pass this along: starting today, from now until the end of the year, i will not use a NEW plastic bag from ANYWHERE I SHOP (including clothes, groceries, random items). i will use my durtbagz and the plastic bags i have accumulated up to now. how many bags will you be eliminating from your personal footprint? at roughly 6-7 bags per trip and one trip per week to 10 days, at roughly 20 weeks left in the year…it proves that one person CAN make a difference.
oh, and the payton skit? i just needed an example of a do-gooder on here. it doesn’t get much better than that.
‘why is that door open?’
I pretty much exclusively use cloth bags for grocery shopping. At Whole Paycheck, er, I mean, Whole Foods they give me 5 cents per bag refund. At the regular store or places like Target…um, the Target addition is a topic for another time, okay? geesh, get off my back about it already…er, uh, where was I? Right, anyway, at the regular store and other places I put them on the belt in front of my items. Sometimes they look at me weird or say “Are you buying these?” It’s nearly impossible to not be sarcastic and snarky and say “Right. I found these old faded canvas bags that say ‘Whole Foods’ and ‘Birkenstock’ (yes, I own those, do I have to justify everything to you people?) and ‘Save the Whales’ bags on the aisles of your store and I’d like to purchase them now.” I even carry a smaller bag that folds all up in my glove box in case I need to make a quick trip to the store and I don’t have my regular bags with me. On rare occasions when I do get those plastic bags, they are used for kitty poo.
I didn’t really think about adding my durtbagz to the collection, but that’s a great idea! I like that the bottom is flat. It makes for easy loading and it doesn’t topple over. Very nice.
Addiction, geesh, see I’m so addicted to Target I can’t even spell the word correctly. That must be denial. Or Freudian. Or something. Anyway, move along now!
mom and i had this conversation this weekend… how durtbagz would be great to take to the store.. i think i emailed you about it at some point as well…
b/c really, do i ever actually eat all the food that we cart home from the grocery if it’s more than just a bag or two??? nope. a lot of it usually spoils before we can eat it
I will be taking my bag with me to the grocery as well.
I’ve actually been saving the grocery store and target type bags (and other plastic bags from the mall) and drop them off at one of our local resale shop to use as well.