REUSING GROCERY BAGS RESULTS IN PEACE OF MIND

A few months ago, my husband and I made a small change to change our shopping habits.  We began re using our grocery bags.

We felt that we could no longer afford the convenience of single-use plastic bags after finding that neither plastic processor on island was equipped to separate plastic bags and make sure they got re-used or recycled.

Because plastic bag recovery is a challenging process, only .7% are recycled in America.  Each year, the remaining 5.6 billion bags are thrown away.  That’s 40,000 tons of plastic which takes up 4,418 million cubic yards of landfill space!

We started changing our habits by bringing our grocery bags back into the store when we shopped.  Many grocery stores gave a 5 cent credit for each bag we re-used.  Next, we began asking for paper instead of plastic.  When our paper bags got old, we recycled them with our cardboard.

Later, we bought cotton grocery bags, which are available at many of the stores.  When those bags get dirty, we throw them into the washing machine.  In the future, we plan to keep our old linen out of the landfill by sewing it into produce bags.

The hardest part about making this change was remembering to bring our bags into the store.  We had to re-train ourselves by walking back to the car for our bags when we forgot.  The benefit to us is peace of mind from knowing that we aren’t contributing plastic bags to Maui’s Central Landfill.

Camille Armantrout

November, 2002