A Few Statistics
- Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide, with the US alone burning through 100 billion.1
- Producing 100 billion plastic bags takes 12 million barrels of oil2
- Worldwide, 1% of all plastic bags are recycled3
- Estimates for the amount of time it takes a typical plastic bag to break down range from 500 to 5,000 years4
Bag Quest
It happened in stages: First, I started thinking of plastic bags as more than simply a vehicle for my groceries– it was an extra item. Next, I began to realize how many of them there were, eating up the cabinet space below my sink. From there, I began to politely inform grocery employees that I was “fine with a lot of items in each bag,” at which point the grocer would put twice as many items in a bag, but double-bag it. Then I realized that a local grocer had recycling bins for bags and dropped them off when I could. Now I use our odd variety of canvas bags to complete the shopping task.
I don’t have it down to a science yet; in fact, I often curse my way down aisle ten and have to leave a full cart to retrieve the forgotten canvas bags from my trunk. But people, I can’t tell you how great it feels to be free from the single most prevalent consumer item on earth. Granted, now I’m realizing that plastic bags hold most of my food purchases anyway, but the plastic Kroger bag is officially banned from my life, and it wasn’t even that hard.