Go green: use cloth bags
The boyfriend’s mother dear recently lent me her book Sleeping Naked is Green by Vanessa Farquharson. The book is based on Vanessa’s blog, Green as a Thistle, and I adore her writing style. I also adore the premise behind her blog/book: making one environmental change every day for an entire year in an effort to go green.
Besides enjoying the book for the story and the writing style, I’ve also been loving the creativity behind the green changes. What’s more, they’ve been reminding me that there are so many more ways that I can live my life greener. Which brings me to this past weekend.
I was out walking and as I neared a grocery store, I remembered that I was running low on a few items. It was bitterly cold out so the idea of heading home to pick up my cloth bags before venturing out into the cold again wasn’t appealing, and thus I figured that if I had to use a couple plastic bags, it wouldn’t kill me or the environment, just this once… besides, I always like to re-use plastic bags. So I went into the store, feeling somewhat justified (but mostly guilty), bought my items and started walking home.
My condo was only about 20 minutes from this little grocery store, but before I had walked for a block, it became apparent that the whole single-bag thing wasn’t working so well. I felt good about the fact that the clerk at the grocery store hadn’t double-bagged my groceries, but I’d rather forgotten that I was carrying a large bag of flour, a large bag of oats, and a myriad of canned goods and other items. All of it was heavy, and definitely too much for the fragility of a plastic bag. The handles were straining. There was no way they were going to make it all the way home.
This was very bad for several reasons:
1) If the bags ripped, there was no way I’d be able to carry all of my groceries in my arms;
2) Some of the more fragile items (such as eggs) might break and I’d be wasting both money and food;
3) I wouldn’t be able to re-use the bags if they were ripped.
The only solution that I could see to this problem was to pick up the bags from the bottom and carry them in my arms. My bag of snap peas was threatening to tip out the top of the grocery bag and one man in a car rolled down his window to ask me if I needed any help, but I managed – with a couple pauses to re-adjust the bags in my arms, and a panicked jog to retrieve my receipt that started blowing down the sidewalk from the wind – to reach my front door without any bag-splitting moments.
I only live on the second floor of my condo building, but that staircase had never seemed taller. The entire way up, I kept envisioning the bags spilling out of my arms and my grapefruit going bounce, bounce, splat or my eggs going crack, crack, crunch down the stairs. By the time I unlocked the door to my suite, however, my groceries were all still intact, and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
The bright side to all of this was that I was so concerned about the bags ripping that I didn’t even feel the cold wind turning my chin and cheeks to ice! But once I was indoors and my groceries were all safely put away, I put a cloth bag in each of my purses and shoulder bags. Next time I feel like spontaneously going to the grocery store on the way home, I will be prepared!
Moral of the story: going green is not only good for the environment, it’s also good for you as a person.
Do you use cloth bags for grocery shopping? Have you read Sleeping Naked is Green or Vanessa’s blog? How do you try to stay “green” on a daily basis?
Email me your mailing address. You’ll be happy.
You are awesome 🙂
Yes, I use cloth bags. I wrote about that a while ago.
That’s a funny story! It’s too bad it’s hard to do the right thing.
PS The Bag Lady is very nice!!
Hehe, yes… the best part is that it’s not really HARD, it’s just that we need to be a little bit more prepared/organized 😉
I use cloth bags for everything but raw meat products. It’s such a simple thing. I keep 3 in my purse for when I’m out and about. I don’t feel guilty when I do forget my cloth bags, though, because I do reuse the plastic bags that come home with me. Still, we would be swimming in plastic bags if I didn’t use cloth bags!
And just a reminder to wash your cloth bags frequently! Bacteria can build up and contaminate your food if you don’t!
Thanks for that reminder – I didn’t think about the raw meat at all! I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t buy raw meat often (I’m so bad at cooking with it. So the boyfriend always cooks meat for me when I go to his place. It’s an excellent solution for me)… but bacteria can come from elsewhere. My bags could likely really do with a solid wash.
Yes, we use cloth grocery bags and we generally keep them in the car. I also have a couple of light weight bags that fold up into small little bundles, and I keep those in my purse for those occasions where I am caught without my grocery bag – or for other stores.
It’s good to be prepared!
I try to. Usually I bus it, so when I get off the bus I have a backpack or bag with me when I pick up the odd thing. I am really bad at keeping bags in the car for larger trips tho…I reuse or recycle the plastic I take home, but it’s tricky to remember sometimes.
We need to have the words “REMEMBER BAGS” stamped across our hands or something…