BYOB

You know how you go to the grocery store and over the years end up collecting, like, a bajillion plastic bags? You can corral them into some silly bag holder, but somehow – there is NEVER A SHORTAGE of bags in your house.

It never occurred to me that we don’t HAVE to use the grocery store’s bags. When my family lived overseas in Asia (no, my Dad wasn’t in the military or a missionary and no, I’m not trilingual and yes, sometimes we lied about being American so they would like us) our grocery store was encouraging us to buy reusable bags to “Save the World For Our Childrens.” That was 6 or 7 years ago, long before I’d seen or heard of Americans being this new eco-savvy green color.

Bring your own cloth bags when you grocery shop and::
– Save money! Our grocery stores give a 5 cents for each bag of our own we use.
– Stop the annoying clutter
– Look cute and feel happy

Some quick (depressing!) facts for ya:
– the world consumes a MILLION plastic bags a minute
– “Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.”
– the Center for Marine Conservation cite plastic bags among the 12 most common items of debris found in coastal cleanup – that’s a lotta litter, you guys

When I first started bringing tote bags to the grocery store, I’d always end up forgetting them at home so we stuff some in the car trunk. We didn’t buy any new bags – just used some old tote bags we had lying around – but if you want to, check out Reusablebags.com. So many to chose from!