I remember almost a year ago driving all the way across town to visit the nearest Central Market. I was so delighted to finally find a huge selection of organic foods and vegan friendly products. One of the items I picked up when I was there were a few canvas bags. For those of you who are unaware, canvas bags are basically just like paper grocery bags only made out of a reusable material. This is beneficial to the environment since the bags won’t just be thrown away after one use.

I was talking to my father about these bags recently when he brought up some good points. Canvas bags take a great deal more energy to produce than plastic bags. So the logic behind them is that if you reuse them enough and stop using plastic that you will make a smaller dent on the environment. One of the main problems is that people buy these bags with good intentions but they end up sitting at home most of the time. Now the carbon-dioxide levels were impacted once when the bag was produced and again when plastic bags are used.

For the sake of argument we can assume that most people aren’t this lazy and the bags are actually used, but there is another counter point. Most people don’t just throw away their plastic grocery bags, instead they reuse them for daily uses such as garbage bags, cleaning up cat litter, lunch sacks, etc. Turns out if you are using canvas bags then turning around and buying separate bags to line your smaller trash cans and using paper sacks for your lunches you are hurting the environment even more. After all it takes a lot more energy to make a trash bag than it does to produce a grocery bag.

I take all of this in mind when going grocery shopping. I work at a grocery store so I am pretty efficient when it comes to bagging. I have two canvas bags that I use and once those are filled I over stuff plastic bags, this way my canvas bags aren’t going completely to waste and I still have something to line my bathroom trash cans with. I’m looking into purchasing some produce canvas bags and possibly some more regular canvas bags. As of right now I live at home so I don’t buy a ton of groceries. Hopefully I can reduce my own impact by learning to use what plastic is already around here rather than stocking up on grocery bags.

When discussing the less extreme people, I believe that if they would stop being so picky about the way their groceries are bagged they could greatly reduce their impact. For example, most people ask for their milk (or in our case orange juice) to be placed in a bag, some even want it doubled bagged. What people don’t realize is that gallon has a handle for a reason! Another example is when people buy one thing, like batteries or a candy bar and insist on using a bag. I’ve seen people with CANVAS BAGS do this after they are filled, it’s ridiculous!

Just something to think about next time you go grocery shopping.

Revised January 15, 2008 at 2:03 pm

Categories: Rants and Raves
Tags: environment