You may or may not be aware of the problem with the plastic grocery bags that we get at the grocery stores. It takes a plastic bag 1000 years to break down in a landfill. Then once the particles are broken down, they will not and cannot be used by anything. They will sit there in our earth forever. Somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, millions end up in the litter stream outside of landfills.

Many people and stores (like the Whole foods Market-click here for the link on the story) are taking a stand against plastic bags and are encouraging people to use reusable bags instead.

Many local stores are starting to sell reusable PolyPropylene bags. These are great, but they cannot be washed in the washing machine when they get dirty. There is a website that sells canvas bags for 99 cents each! For bigger, heavy-duty bags with a 4 1/2″ wide bottom that are only $2.89 (click here for link). Their website is www.cheaptotes.com.

I encourage you to please think about the impact you are making on the earth when you take home 10-20 plastic bags from each shopping trip that you make. One purchase of the canvas totes will last you for years to come!

If you don’t have the money to buy new reusable bags, just take your used plastic bags from your last trip with you to the store and reuse them!