never accept a plastic bag

I’ve been pretty awful at this lately. I keep forgetting to grab the bags on the way out the door.

Last time I just paid extra for paper bags, and felt only mildly better since I’m using them for making mailing envelopes for books. Eh.

Oh well, today’s a new day. I’ll just re-new my vow.

So far this month I’ve only accepted two plastic bags. Not bad for three weeks.

I’m getting really used to using my own shopping cart and shopping bags. Some checkers have sighed at me like I was an inconvenience, but many of them have been very supportive.

It might take a few extra moments to bag into reuseable bags rather than automatically sticking things into the plastic bags they’re set up to use, so I can see why a rushed checker who feels the pressure from the next customer to “keep it moving” as quickly as possible might feel a little exasperated at humoring my “little quirky request”.

here http://www.footprintbag.com/

I WAS DOING SO WELL! I totally messed it all up today.

We went to Safeway to buy groceries for my daughter’s party on Saturday. I EVEN REMEMBERED TO PUT THE BAGS IN THE CAR. But somehow I boneheaded taking them in, and never even thought about it when they were bagging my stuff. I didn’t realize how I had totally ruined my winning streak until we pulled into the car wash to vacuum the car, and I had to take out the (plastic) bags of groceries and then take out the cloth bags.

Damn, damn, DAMN.

Well, shit.

Okay. Rant is over. Tomorrow is a new day. Winning streak begins again, starting… NOW!

Today at Wal-Mart I dashed in the store so fast I forgot to take my bags with me out of the trunk. I was very disappointed with myself, and annoyed that I would have to break my winning streak of not accepting any bags.

Then I suddenly realized I could just BUY ANOTHER cloth bag right there at the register. (Duh.)

That made me much happier. I only needed to buy one bag to hold all the things I was buying, and that was only one dollar. My winning streak continues!

Another successful day yesterday! Better than normal, I think.

-I remembered to bring my own bags to the grocery store.

-I always buy loose onions, and I buy a lot of them. Yesterday I didn’t remember to bring little “produce” bags with me, but I did think to gather the onions into an old plastic shopping bags which I’m now re-using, which I had with me because I remembered to coil it up into my pocket.

-I bought carrots in bulk for the first time, instead of buying them pre-wrapped in plastic. I left them loose at the bottom of my cloth bag. When I checked out, I told the clerk to just weigh them in the cloth bag. What real difference was that bag going to make? A penny? Not worth worrying about.

-I needed to buy celery, and it only comes with a stupid little plastic diaper around its bottom. The produce man happened to be nearby, and I explained to him that “I’m not supposed to accept any plastic bags this month” and asked if I had to take the little plastic celery wrapper. He said I could leave it there. I said I hoped he could re-use it, maybe. Don’t know whether he could or not, of course, but at least I communicated my message to someone that extra plastic on my vegetables ISN’T something that makes me happier as a shopper.

I feel really good about that.

BTW, I’ve used that line “I’m not supposed to accept…” on several store clerks now, especially when they’ve already started bagging my stuff into plastic. Somehow I feel it defuses the situation from me preaching at them about plastic bags. Makes it sound more like I’m doing this on a dare. To me, it also sounds like I’m taking some responsibility for not having let them in on the gag earlier, and asking for their help in achieving this goal, whether it is serious or just silly. So far everyone has been very nice about it, and all seem happy to be pitching in to help me “win my bet” or whatever reason I’m doing this.

Today I went shopping with my kids at Walgreen’s. We remembered to bring along a cloth bag, but when we realized we were buying more than would fit in it, we bought another cloth bag right then. In the car somehow my kids emptied both bags and repacked them in some other way, because both bags came in handy when we then stopped at Grocery Outlet. We filled both bags again.

I think they emptied the first two bags because there were toys inside, and packages to open, and stuff to mess with.

After Grocery Outlet we went to our garden plot. Some of the stuff was gardening supplies and got used, then stored in the trunk. The remaining stuff got put back into the two bags, and somehow it all ended up fitting, and when we went home we brought it all inside.

It was a day of amazing wormhole adventures as matter materialized and dematerialized at will, just to make these bags seem useful.

Did great today! Stopped at three different stores and bought a variety of frozen foods and produce, as well as sewing stuff. Only accepted one plastic produce bag, because the tomatoes I bought (at a discount, for sauce) were going a bit squishy on me.

The rolled-up plastic bag in my purse saved me at the first store. The cloth bags in my car did fine for the other stuff.

I’m becoming curious how many times I might be able to re-use that one plastic grocery bag. It’s had three lives so far.

At the fabric store I picked up some clear vinyl. It is relatively thin. Not sure if it will make ideal bags or not, but I thought I’d give it a shot. I have ideas for pockets which might make things nicer.

This worked well for me. Besides the ‘bag of bags’ in my car, somehow I also ended up with one rolled-up plastic bag in my purse. They’re really small when they’re rolled up. Small was important this time, because I had just switched purses from my big tote to my sexy little clutch.

I popped into a little store just to inquire about something, and certainly didn’t intend to buy anything, but you know how it goes. When I brought my stuff to the counter and got out my wallet to pay, there was the bag! I whipped it out, and felt so utterly ecological.

If I’d had to truck all the way back out to the car to get a bag for this impulse buy, I’m sure I wouldn’t have bothered, and would have ended up accepting another plastic bag. I am going to keep an “impulse buy” bag rolled up in my purse all the time now!

Today I made sure that I put a bag full of bags into my car, so I won’t find myself again at such a loss as yesterday.

It is really just a cloth bag stuffed with lots of old plastic bags that we hadn’t thrown in the trash yet. I’ll let you know how well it works out trying to re-use them!