Sunday, April 1, 2007

Life List Day 14 - Save the World from Plastic Bags



Here is the mountain of nonrecyclable grocery bags I've amassed in just two months. It's scary enough how they're taking over my house - I shudder to think the state of our landfills. I used to pack my son's lunch in them every day, but now he buys the school lunch. So they just pile up.

Today, as my "thing to do" for my life list, I bought a half-dozen reusable bags from Trader Joe's.



Cute as they are - and I love the Hawaiian print! - I suspect I'll feel self-conscious at first asking the bagger to use them - especially at Vons where one simply doesn't do that sort of thing. It's all so earth mama. (But hey, at least they're not hemp.)

I feel good that I've made the switch to reusable, but I still need to come up with some way to use the pile of plastic bags I have. I feel too guilty throwing them away. Makeshift rain hats? Stuffing for pillows? Purse liners? I suppose I could get a dog so I could use them as pooper scoopers.

Anybody have any ideas?

5 comments:

MoJoR said...

The good news is that Los Angeles now recycles clean plastic bags in the blue bins. But it's still more important to cut down on use, and the very cute reusable bags are the best thing that you can do.

JILL SMOLINSKI said...

Thanks mojor - I think maybe because I'm not in City of L.A., I can't recycle here in the boondocks - but maybe I'll save them up and sneak them into someone else's bin!!

Queen Jaw Jaw said...

Bunch them up and take them to the local antique shops. They love um. They use them to bag shopper's items they've purchased. They will thank you. Tell them about YOUR BOOK while you're there and ask them to carry them on the front counter. Win-win...

Anonymous said...

Fuse them together and make "fabric". you can find a bunch of instructional type things online for it. I've been saving to try it myself. And an added bonus: you can add it to your life list :-)

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