Plastic Bags can stuff it, but not with my stuff

And the winner (drawn by Lily) is.....Arthouse!  Congrats!  Thanks all, for entering, and I loved reading your comments.  Here's to fewer plastic bags in our lives.  If you have trouble remembering, making this pact to NOT use plastic will help, because carrying groceries one by one isn't fun. ;)  Also, these little bags that roll up into pouches do make it easy to always have one with you.  It becomes a habit and second nature after awhile, too.

It's time for another eco-conscious rant, and this topic that gets me riled up as much as anything: those annoying, ubiquitous plastic shopping bags.

Can’t stand them and go to great lengths to avoid them. I won’t use plastic bags when shopping, which leads me to either plan ahead and bring my own bags, or not get everything I went to the store for--buying only what I can carry.
I’ve always tried to minimize my plastic bag usage, and so even before I started using reusable bags I was disgusted at how many plastic bags I accumulated even though I was such a minimalist. The recycling bins inside several stores helped, but, still, what a pain to bag up and recycle all those plastic bags that I didn’t want to possess in the first place!

Then I got this big, huge beach bag. Since I don’t go to the beach too often, I realized it would be perfectly suited to hauling groceries, and it held so much. That was quite awhile ago, and I have an assortment of reusable bags now, from cotton totes to my little nylon bags that fold up into little pouches, perfect for stashing in a purse or pocket.

Hopefully cashiers are getting more used to customers bringing their own bags.  They are often surprised how much mine hold, especially considering that cashiers sometimes only put one or two items in each bag when using plastic.  Unless you bring your own, you could easily walk out of a shopping trip with dozens of those things.  Yikes!

Here's a challenge:  count how many plastic bags come into your house in the course of a week.   Leave a comment on my blog about how you’re reducing your plastic bag consumption.  I’m giving away a cool green flip & tumble bag that will fit in the palm of your hand.  I'll pick a winner Sept. 21.