Plastic bags are stupid: They fly around looking ugly, tear into shreds and hang in trees, leach toxins into the environment, and turtles & Co. choke on them because they mistake them for jellyfish. I kid you not, I once watched a cow throw up a plastic bag in the streets of India. And although she is a ruminating animal and regurgitating is a normal part of her life, I don’t think she enjoyed that experience at all. I count that to one of my more memorable vomit-witnessing moments in my life.
On top of that it costs energy and mineral oil to produce them. But: It costs even more energy to produce a single-use paper bag. Before even starting a discussion on whether a single-use plastic bag or a single-use paper bag is worse for the environment, I think everyone will agree, that single-use anything is by far much worse for the environment than its many-many-many-times-use counterpart.
This month I challenge you, to completely ban single-use bags from your life.
In many places, plastic bags are now completely banned. In others, you now have to pay a small amount for every single-use bag you need. This has already changed a lot in people’s behaviour. I always have an extra cloth bag at the bottom of my purse, just in case. The cool thing is that cloth bags are diverse and can be as representative of your personality, as a t-shirt. You can even design your own. Personalized bags also make great gifts. They cost more than a single use plastic bag, but then you use it until it falls apart, which is hopefully 1000 times.