Recycling Bags Is Tough

I'm posting some thoughts on recycling bags because the same thing happens to us every week. Namely, we go shoppng and either forget to bring bags or do not have enough on hand. It is difficult to remember to bring shopping bags with us every time we go out shopping, especially when we take the kids out. I estimate that we bring enough bags with us about 80% of the time we go shopping.

As a result of our forgetfulness, we still acquire some 3-4 plastic bags every week. Although I use about 1 plastic bag a week for garbage, this means we have a net accumulation of about 100-150 plastic bags per year. Not good.

My favorite strategy to combat this bag shortage is to store a set of bags in each car at all times. Typically, this means checking once every few weeks to see that the bag supply in the car is ample. But the payoff is two-fold:

1) I get 3 to 10 cents off at the supermarket for every bag I recycle

2) Our house does not drown in shopping bags