I have two HUGE bags of bags in my laundry room.
There is no recycling services here in this small northern town and we have been struggling with it a bit. It seems horrifying to us to just throw away things like cereal boxes and papers. Back in Osoyoos, we could recycle everything and it was picked up every other week, as much as you could pile on the curb that was recyclable, they would take. There is no service like that here. However, we have learned that there are some sorting bins at the local land fill... so, we have some hope that some things can be taken, I just want to learn where it goes & how its sorted.
And, I have discovered that the grocery store has a big bin in the entrance that you can return your plastic bags to. All plastic bags I'm hoping. Those two big bags don't look too bad, but I decided to unstuff one and see how many bags were actually in it...
Eek! That's a lot of bags. I'm horrified at my wastefulness.
Its nice to recycle when its convenient so this will be one of our first tests of commitment is to make the effort to sort our recycling and take it to the appropriate drop off place. And especially these plastic bags... I hate seeing them piled up in my laundry room.
Sooo, all this to say that one of my goals, my first small step, is to ALWAYS remember my re-useable grocery bags, not just for when I get groceries but when I do any shopping. I have a couple of those bags that fold up into a pocket smaller than my cell phone that easily fit in my purse. I want to keep those in there for when I do random purchases and to keep my other shopping bags near the door so I can grab one on my way out if I know I'm picking something up.
I know this is possibly something some of you always remember but I've definitely fallen out of the habit of remembering them and so I figured it would be the best place for me to start.
Great job Beck! We always keep ours in the trunk and so that we have them when we go out. The only time I use plastic ones now is when I am low on kitchen garbage bags. We also have to take our own recycling out to sort in our small town, but we have lots of bins around town. However, it is not nearly as convienent to sort outside in -25 as it is to drop it in a bin at your house. I feel for you too. I try to separate at the house, but there is too many categories! For now we do all paper, plastic and cardboard. I need to figure out a system for tin, and glass. (We don't have much of that so it's not too bad)
ReplyDeleteOne easy opportunity for reducing the # of plastic bags you use is when purchasing 1 or 2 items that can fit into your purse, tell the checkout clerk that you don't need a bag and just put your purchases right into your purse. Makes me feel good when I can do that!
ReplyDelete