HELP! WE'RE DROWNING IN PLASTIC

When I return from shopping at the supermarket, I may have five or six bags for $30 worth of items.  Paper goods, fresh fruit, cleaning supplies, frozen foods---each and every category is given its own separate bag. In our laundry room, we have a small mountain of plastic bags piled up for recycling somewhere, but most places don’t want them.  Walmart has a big barrel for leftover bags, but of course, you have to remember to bring them with you on the few occasions you drive to that store on the highway.

Some cities and towns are banishing plastic bags, thus forcing citizens to bring their own cloth bags.  Several foreign countries have banned the use of plastic bags, but the USA turns a blind eye to this blight on our environment.  Lord knows, most of us have a huge collection of cloth bags from every event we’ve attended in the past ten years where they’re giving them away.  Some people actually spend money on them, but really, you don’t have to.

One store that forces me to think ahead is Aldi’s. It’s way across town, so I don’t go there often, but when I do, I somehow have the foresight to bring along cloth bags, because Aldi’s charges for shopping bags and if you’re a frugal person like me, you aren’t about to pay for bags when  you have piles of them at home.  If you watch people bagging their own stuff at Aldi’s, you notice they aren’t as picky about separating products. Usually, it’s more about putting some heavy things at the bottom, and lighter weight things at the top, which means you might mix canned goods, laundry detergent, and lettuce, God forbid.

Have you seen the islands of plastic that are collecting in the ocean to clog up our waters for the next million years?  It’s scary, and totally unnecessary.  I wish my city or state would banish the use of all plastic bags, and make me do the right thing.