That was amazing! I have four bags that were promoted by my grocery store, they hold alot and are strong. Somehow when I go shopping I forget them. I truly will make a point of putting them to use. And I do line small trash cans with those plastic bags.

I was amazed too. I had no idea that it costs so much to recycyle them, or that so many countries, and even cities in the US, have already banned them or charge a tax on them. How many barrels of oil did it say China is saving a year?

My hubby was so impressed he totally approved of using the green bags they sell at HEB's that you use over and over again, and he is not one to be inconvienced!

HEB's has a promotional deal going on. When you buy the bags you get free raffle tickets for a $25 gift certificate. But that's not the point. The point is we are going to use them. We'll keep some in each of our cars with some of the small thin veggie bags in them and keep reusing those as long as we can.

I even took one of them into the dollar store today to put my purchases in and felt real ... green! :-)

I forgot to mention that the reusable bags only cost $1.00 each.

Thanks for that link. I sent it to one of the community service managers with our city. I even suggested that we prhibit the use of plastic bags here in Allen. I doubt it will happen anytime soon, but it would be nice if it would. I like to reuse the paper bags and also bring some of the canvas bags, but occasionally will forget them when I go to the store. One of the grocery stores here will refund you 5 cents for every bag that you reuse. I'll do anything to save a little bit on our groceries. They will even give the 5 cents for all the bags you bring in (within reason) even if they don't reuse all of them. I once brought in six bags, but they only needed four but gave me a 30 cent refund anyway even though I pointed it out to them. (Can I say Market Street? hee-hee)

Thanks Denise! As the saying goes "We've got to start somewhere" -- so "let it begin in me."

This is a response from my friend, Linda. She's full of good ideas:

~ ~ ~
Kiddos,

HEB and Walmart sell the cloth bags and they are nice and big and $1.

HEB's are green and Walmart's are black. I like the big square bottom of HEB's better because it holds it's shape better but both are nice for a buck. They are always in the trunk of my car. Take them inside any store with you when you are shopping. From Costco to Dilliards, they work everywhere! You can go on line and buy cloth bags of allllll kinds too.

I keep my plastic produce bags in my cloth bags and reuse them over and over and over........... I guess we could buy the paper lunch sacks and use those but most veggies/fruits are wet or moist and the paper wouldn't last long in the produce section.

For those who sew it wouldn't take much of nothing to make their own reusable veggies bags. You could even use left over scraps of material to make them or you could go designer. Walmart has TONS of cute, cheap material with veggie/fruit patterns on them. What a nice gift it would make! I would love a set of fruit and veggie bags that had been custom made for me. Christmas is around the corner. It would make a good fund raiser also for schools or churches. We could raise awareness for our kids on recycling!

Old T-shirts would work great too. They stretch.

Old pillowcases could be cut in half and 2 bags could be made out of one pillowcase for lettuce and potatoes for example. I wished I sewed and had a machine.
It would be worth it just to watch people's faces as you pull out all your creations at the check out stand! ha

We gotta start somewhere. The email Ragna sent me regarding the plastic bags was toooooooooo alarming. I have ALWAYS recycled like a maniac. I have a big 3 drawer Tupperware bin in my kitchen. The top drawer is for plastic. In this I put plastic bags, and alllllllllllll the plastic wrapping that comes off so much stuff! The plastic that covers your paper towels, toilet paper rolls, dry cleaning bags, retired Ziploc bags etc. goes in that drawer. I smuggle those into the plastic bag recycle bins at the store,it is all the same stuff. All can be recycled. I am shocked to have learned how expensive it is to do so, however.

I am trying to get away from stuff like Ziploc bags in the first place.

Any more ideas? I would love any suggestion anybody has.

Thanks, Linda

~ ~ ~

And I too would love to hear any suggestions you all might have.

Roselee/Ragna

I'll try the canvas bags too. I was using the plastic to clean up after my dogs but I'll think of something else instead. PJ

PJ, I used to raise and show dogs. This was before plastic became so readily available and everybody just used pieces of newspaper and a big paper bag. It worked fine.

Often you can find roomier, sturdier bags at thrift stores & garage sales:

I have a couple of the $1 bags from the grocery store, but my favorite one is a big yellow cotton one that I found at a thrift store.

I trained myself to use my canvas/cotton/etc bags by diligently stuffing them inside each other when I unloaded groceries & taking them back to the car *right then* & putting them on the passenger seat or in the floor on the passenger side.

I've been embarrassing my family by recycling since before it was fashionable---but I get fewer strange looks now, lol! The BEST shopping bags are two bucks at Home Depot. They have stretchy tops. They hold more than you want to carry. The locking latch is a pain to lock, BUT you can hook one part of the latch on the side of the grocery cart(inside) and the other part on the opposite side, and two bags will line the entire grocery cart. Only drawback I've found so far is that sometimes the latches wear through the bag tops, from overloading, probably.

Sylvia and Laura, thanks for the tips on what are good bags to get and how to use them. I been taking the HEB green bags into all the stores I visit and, as Sylvia says, diligently putting them back in the car, or hanging them on a hook we have near the garage door, after unloading. Bob has been very faithful in using them also and in putting the little thin produce bags back in to use again.

The bag we used to put the plastic bags in to return to the store for recycling is usually stuffed after a couple of weeks. It now hangs empty, which gives me a good feeling. Maybe I've saved a pint of black gold -- oil!

Plastic is very dangerous not only to animals but to humans too. I know I worked in a plastic factory years ago most of the people died off to cancer. You know when a house fire kills not from the fire itself but from the smoke fumes coming from items inside the home mostly from plastic fumes.
I have bags that I take with me to the store sometimes but from now on I will do my part in helping to take care of our world and take them every time.
What gets me are the labors working on new construction homes or roadways, They litter the area big time.
I do wish the stores would banned all plastic bags ASAP.

Thank you Roselee getting the info out to us.

Yikes!! Thank you so much for posting this! I knew plastic bags were harmful to the environment, but had no idea they were this bad!! I am going to Hobby Lobby after work today to buy a few large canvas bags that I can decorate to use from now on!!

Tiffany

Tiffany, you beat me to the punch! I'm so going to start decorating those totes from Hobby Lobby! Maybe I could even make a business out of it, huh?

Below is a link to my art page; if I get some of those canvas bags painted I'll post a picture of them too. (Shameless self-promotion: prints available of the stuff I already have up!)

Here is a link that might be useful: Julie's Paintings

Barb, many years ago I worked in a brand-new building in downtown Dallas.

When a fire broke out in the plastic-insulated wiring between floors, our area was heavily damaged by smoke.

The company closed for one day, & they assured us that it was safe to return the next day after the special clean-up crew had removed the porous ceiling tiles & wiped down every single surface in the office-
they even took paper files out of the stacks & wiped each one.

So all 28 of us came back to work...

& the next day, 22 of us called in sick!

The fumes from the burned plastic had gotten into the air conditioning ducts & vents & we'd breathed it all day long.