News Flash: It’s Not an Eco-Friendly Reusable Bag if You Don’t Use It
Can you shop at any large retailer today without seeing a display of reusable shopping bags for sale at the checkout aisle? Seems like a good thing, right? Buy a cloth tote and prevent a lot of one-use plastic bags from entering the landfills.
But the thought occurred to me recently that it might not be a good thing if lots and lots of people are buying reusable bags but not reusing them. Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s started worrying about that.
A thought-provoking piece in the Wall Street Journal recently put the spotlight on the downside of all those “eco-friendly” reusable bags, especially those made of plastic (recycled or not):
“Many of the cheap, reusable bags that retailers favor are produced in Chinese factories and made from nonwoven polypropylene, a form of plastic that requires about 28 times as much energy to produce as the plastic used in standard disposable bags and eight times as much as a paper sack,” notes author Ellen Gamerman.
But cheap reusable bags are undoubtedly the rage these days, especially as communities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Westport, Connecticut have started to adopt bans on free, throwaway plastic bags. In response, lots of companies have gotten into the renewable bag business … and I mean lots: one million bags from Wal-Mart last Earth Day alone, 500,000 from Home Depot (again, that’s counting only Earth Day), with reusable tote-makers seeing sales increase over the past year by 76 to 1,000 percent.
Obviously, if so many people are bringing home these bags and not using them frequently, they’re making things worse, not better. So if you’ve got a tote, use it.
To read more from the Wall Street Journal’s perspective, see “An Inconvenient Bag.”
Oh this is so true. Supermarkets are starting to remove the carrier bags so you have to re-use your bags and also promoting it by giving you points=money if you re-use them.
I always use my Sam bags (Use It Again Sam) because they are so light and fold up into a small pouch that’s actually sewn into the inside seam. I have one in my purse all the time, use them for everything. They come in great colors too….LOVE THEM!!!!!