{"id":7888,"date":"2021-10-09T21:20:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-10T01:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=7888"},"modified":"2021-10-09T21:34:55","modified_gmt":"2021-10-10T01:34:55","slug":"365243-bag-it-q-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365243-bag-it-q-a\/","title":{"rendered":"365+#243: Bag It – Q & A"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>BOTTOM LINE for those in a hurry:
\n\u2022<\/strong> The best bags are ones you already have. Reuse them. (I had accumulated about 15 reusable bags over the years, mostly as swag from conferences. If you want to know which are the least harmful to the environment and why, read on.
\n\u2022<\/strong> Refuse Single Use Plastic (SUP) bags when possible.<\/p>\n

THE BACKSTORY:
\n<\/strong>I had been feeling rather virtuous about taking reusable bags with me when shopping. I knew that the thin single use plastic (SUP) bags that grocery stores usually use cannot be put in curbside recycling and most often end up as litter or worse \u2013 polluting the oceans and getting into the food chain through fish. Yes, our local grocery store (Kroger) has a large convenient bin<\/a><\/span> to collect these bags but only 9% of plastic film is actually recycled<\/span><\/a>. <\/strong>So, I was doing the right thing by using reusable bags. Or was I?<\/p>\n

A friend sent me a disturbing article from the New York Times titled The Cotton Tote Crisis<\/a><\/span><\/em> which explained that one would have to use a cotton bag 20,000 times to offset its overall impact on the environment (intensive use of water in growing the cotton, etc.) I was using at least 6 cotton bags. Hmmm. I needed to do some more research.<\/p>\n

The deeper I got into the research the more complicated it got. The usual alternatives to cotton bags are: those evil single use film plastic bags, polypropylene bags, paper bags, and misc. bags made out of nylon like Baggu<\/a><\/span>, hemp, or other fibers. Were they any better? Well, maybe.<\/p>\n

SUMMARY OF REUSABLE BAG OPTIONS:<\/strong><\/p>\n