Tuesday, November 13, 2007

WC: Ode to Carrying a Canvas Bag (or Two or More) to the Supermarket

Slate.com, one of my favorite online mags, has an interesting article about paper vs plastic, the answer of course being neither.

Here's a stat from the piece, which was written by :
And since discarded plastic bags don't break down for eons, they're free to wreak havoc on wildlife and ecosystems; there are, for example, 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in every square mile of ocean.
And don't forget that plastic bags are petroleum products. Yes, millions of people have been horribly injured or killed in the Middle East so that we can continue to pump out--and quickly discard--plastic bags.

I try not to ever take a bag, and after reading this piece, I'm going to try even harder.

1 comment:

The Write Bunch said...

I do try to use canvas bags as much as possible .. which means when I remember. Which is almost never when I'm on my way home from work and have to stop to pick up (the amazing disappearing:) milk or eggs.
I also confess that plastic seems to be the best way of discarding the lovely little bits my kitty cat makes of her kibble.

However, I was pleased on a recent trip to Ikea. They have begin to charge 5 cents for those big plastic bags, and they're charging only 59 cents for the big bags you use in the store, only the ones they're selling are blue. With handles. Groovy! Of course, I bought one for my haul. I *hated* putting my stuff into those other crappy bags. It always took so long and people stare and blahblahblah. AND, the added bonus: If I can fit it into the bag to get it to the checkout, I *know* I can get it all in the bag to get it to my car.

Yeah.

-av-