If you were to look under my kitchen sink right now you would find a garbage bin, a box of large, black garbage bags, and another bag stuffed full of plastic shopping bags.  At a guess, I would estimate that I have about 50 bags in there right now.

Last year I took the plunge and purchased some reusable shopping bags and bins.   I’ve used these when I grocery shop and managed to cut out approximately 6 – 10 bags a week.  However, every time I go to a different store, or buy something on the spur of the moment and forget to bring a bag with me, I end up with yet another plastic shopping bag under my sink.

Why do I care?  For one thing, did you know that approximately 500 billion – 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed every year?  That works out to about 1 million bags per minute.  Per minute!!  That means billions of dollars that retailers spend just in packaging, but also a huge amount of plastic being released into our environment.    Marine life are dying on a regular basis from eating plastic that is mistaken for food.  Windblown plastic bags are found all over the world.  And the worst part is that plastic is not biodegradable.  It merely breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, contaminating our soil and water with plastic particles.   The effects of this can be seen in situations like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

I have made efforts to reuse plastic shopping bags.  I’ve used them mostly for waste and garbage disposal.  Reusing is great, and I’m not taking away from that.  I am ultimately using less plastic, however I still have 50 bags under my sink!  And that doesn’t even count things like freezer and sandwich bag, produce bags and bread bags.  I started looking around my kitchen and realized that we are living in a plastic world.  It’s so common, so prevalent, that we don’t even see it anymore.  Natural products made from wood and cloth are a novelty and plastic is the norm.  So step by step I’ve been looking around my home for more ways that I can reduce our plastic consumption.

First on my list will be to buy some more reusable bags.  One thing I’ve realized though, is that I don’t want to buy them from a particular store again.  Why?  Because then I feel obligated to only use them at that store.  I know that this is a quirk that might be exclusive to me, but I feel weird going into Wal-Mart with a bag that says Superstore on the side.  Lucky me, there are an infinite variety of generic, environmentally friendly shopping bags now available…they even come in prints and colors.  Check out www.reusablebags.com Investing in some reusable bags is easy to do, relatively economical…and I get to go shopping for some cute, new bags.

It’s a small step, but definitely another step in the right direction.  Using environmentally friendly shopping bags is just one more way to make our home a little more green.