As a habit I carry re-useable bags for shopping. They’re useful for lots of other things too.
Last week, Scotland became the latest country to make a charge for plastic bags in shops.
The key reason for me to want to stop accepting bags is because they escape into the natural world and kill animals particularly sea life when they accidentally ingest them.
But
So many people feel that bags are an essential part of life.
It’s like an addiction.
One thing people often say is that bags are important to use as garbage bin liners and that this is a good option for shopping bags.
Here’s a simple suggestion to combat that idea. And I got it from my mum!
The bin is lined with a newspaper. No more worries about plastic at all. This is the bin for biodegradable kitchen waste so the paper will be helped along no bother!
NaBloPoMo 9/30
Plantbased Health Coach & Recipe Creator
a blog by a multilingual lifelong expat/international, linguist, researcher, speaker, mother of three, living in the Netherlands and writing about raising children with multiple languages, multiculturalism, parenting abroad, international life...
The planet is our home; we need to be more responsible. Here's what I do.
and that...
The planet is our home; we need to be more responsible. Here's what I do.
Now that’s a clever idea!
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My sentiments exactly – and much cheaper than biodegradable bags, which are probably not as biodegradable as claimed, anyway!
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Thry take a cery ling time and only degrade when in a high temperature compost environment for a long time.
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That’s been my experience, too!
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I must admit… I’m a bit sceptical about the newspaper bin liner 😉
But, anyway, this plastic bag issue drives me to distraction. In Germany, they usually ask you, in the shop, whether you need a bag or not, and often they charge. I’m happy to pay, if I haven’t got a re-usable bag already with me.
In Spain and in the UK, they never even ask, they just shove it, however minute the purchase may be, into a plastic bag, even if you’re already carrying two or three and clearly do not require another one. How crazy is that?! There needs to be a simple shift in mindset, and it’s just not happening. //rant over//
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I find it really frustrating that people never ask if you want a bag here in the UK either. When I worked as a shop assistant, I always made sure to ask, but it doesn’t seem to occur to most people
(Rant all you want, this is a favourite rant of mine too!
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Many moons ago, I worked in a health food shop in North London, and we only used recycled bags. Customers used to bring them in 🙂
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Genius!
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Yeah! Ranting is good!
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I like the idea of fewer plastic bags, but how do you put the rubbish out on the curb for the weekly collection?
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We have huge wheely bins.
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Nice! My street in Utrecht has no wheeelie bins so all the rubbish gets put out in black plastic bags…
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Dislike. Thats terrible. Ours now have a chip to start weighing the rubbish. I hope they start to do it soon.
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We only pyt our bibs out once a month or more though.
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We re-use our plastic bags for trash, and I’m not sure how the newspaper will work for trash. Often it is messy stuff and the newspaper would not hold together.
We always use grocery tote bags but when we go to a the drug store or many other shops we often do not have out totes w/ us.
I’m against the plastic bags, but getting a second use out of them avoids buying plastic trash can liners. I’d love to see a good substitute.
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Ita a chalkenge to keep it all clean and practical.
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Stores handing out plastic bags by the armload is the default here. We carry reusable shopping bags to the grocery store but still end up with many from other places. It makes no sense to not take reusable bags everywhere, but we just never did! I’m going to try to change that.
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Well done. Its hard when the store culture is so throw away.
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Very clever
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Thanks : )
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