Day one of Mick’s Big Fat Green Challenge. AJ bought two new canvas bags to use instead of paper or plastic. Not too original a thought, I know, but we have to start somewhere, right? And, believe it not, this is something we haven’t done yet. The real challenge for us will be to actually remember to take them out of the car when we do our shopping. We tried re-using our paper bags for a while and wouldn’t remember them until we were at the check-out stand or, worse yet, once we loaded up the new groceries and saw the bags just sitting there waiting to be re-used. But this week, I’m going to start trying just a bit harder.
Cost: $2.99 each plus tax
Benefit: Today we saved 6 paper bags from being used. According to a California Energy Saving Guidance website, about 700 paper bags can be made from one 15-year-old tree. Being the little number crunching geek that I am, if we shopped 2x per week, using 6-10 bags per trip (because the grocery store always double bags), we could save at least one tree in about 35-44 weeks. Hmmm, really doesn’t seem like much…. But if you consider over 3 million households in Los Angeles County, 11.5 Million households in California, and an estimate of nearly 115,000,000 households across the United States….using canvas instead of paper, it could make a pretty big difference. Plus the whole bagging practice really has become grossly wasteful. I’ve regularly gone in, bought one or two items, and had the cashier try to bag the purchase. I can carry my Cherry Garcia out just fine.
Bonus: Trader Joe’s enters your name into a weekly raffle for a free shopping spree each time you use a re-usable bag. Cha-ching.
Seriously, it felt good using the canvas bags. It really does make sense.
–Mick
Gelson’s on Franklin has the same raffle FYI…
Good to know and nice to see that some grocery stores are encouraging their customers to use less paper and plastic.
Damn, that’d add up to a healthy down payment at Gelson’s.
Welcome to the canvas club! I have been trying to do this for two years now! But as good as that sounds…I too often forget to grab the bags from my pantry. So I tried keeping half of them in my car as a back up. Well, I still forgot! Doing better with it now, even if it means running back out to the car! lol
LoLo
We made the switch when we moved out to CA since it meant we’d be doing multi-bag grocery shopping every week and haven’t looked back. We invested in 6 large bags, all different types (freezer bag, heavy stuff bags, and light canvas bags) and they work great. Usually we put them back in the car right after we empty them at home. Like anything else, once you get used to it, it seems easy and natural. I like that in less than a year, this little act alone can save an entire tree. That’s powerful stuff!
Right on Mickie! The canvas bags are one of the green things I have actually have gotten in the habit of. Here is my trick when I forget to bing them into the store: I leave the groceriens in the cart and then put them into the bags in my trunk. Not too horribly inconvenient…. Oh, another thing, I have needed a dozen canvas bags in each car due to hungry famiy and lots of entertaining. These handy canvas bags shrink when washed….don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Kathy#3 says HI