Just One Thing: Reusable Shopping Bags… Bite The Bullet Already!

I discovered this cool lil’ site called Morsbags.com earlier this week and Twittered about it, but I thought it deserved its own post.

The site offers instructions on how to sew your own shopping bags instead of purchasing reusable ones. It also shares some well known, and not so well known facts about these bags of doom. Here are a couple:

• One million plastic bags are consumed per MINUTE globally
• Marine wildlife unfortunately mistake plastic bags for food and once ingested, they eventually die
• One reusable bag has the potential to replace thousands of plastic ones over a lifetime

Yes, supermarkets now offer a selection of reusable bags to purchase, however they too are often made of plastic, aren’t they? So pull out those remnant fabrics, old jeans, curtains and follow the downloadable instructions or watch the How-To video Morsbags offers and help to decrease the number of plastic bags that make their way into our landfills and our beloved sea creatures’ tummies. Better still, invite your friends over and make a party of it!

I have already stopped using plastic bags for almost 6 months now, save for the PoopEase biodegradable bags I get specifically for my dog, but I did the math on how many plastic bags I was consuming, just for carrying groceries:

• Shopped twice per month
• Required 4 bags per trip
• 96 bags in one year, or 1,440 in 15 years!!!

I felt nauseous. This didn’t even include the shopping bags I’d get from clothing stores and the likes… So I pulled out every single canvas bag I was given at trade shows & conferences, ones I purchased for vacations, and pulled out all the remnant fabrics I had that I have since made more bags from.

I keep a couple in my desk at the office at all times and a bunch at home by the door. I also keep one in my laptop bag, just in case.

Making the switch was pretty easy and today, I can’t see myself not saying: “That’s ok, I have my own bag”. Give it a try!

Have you already made the switch? Wasn’t so hard, was it? I would love to hear from you!

You could always email me at melissacthibodeau [at] gmail [dot] com.