Plastic bags are bad. But not using them in our day and age is almost impossible. They seem to be everywhere. Yeah, you can ask for paper at the grocery store, but as this Paper vs. Plastic article shows, paper is no panacea, and actually is more environmentally damaging to produce than plastic. The problem with plastic is that once it’s here, it never leaves. And it has a nasty propensity to suffocate marine life. So given no other choice, I guess I’ll choose paper for now.

So what’s the real solution? Bringing our own reusable bags, which, let’s face it, is a major pain in the ass. And when you have a cart full of groceries, you’re not going to have enough reusables to fit all that stuff. Biodegradable plastic bags are one possibility - they are not widely available yet, but they do exist. Of course they have their own set of environmental issues, but that’s a topic for another day.

So, in the spirit of ‘every little bit counts,’ I therefore vow to:

• Use paper at the grocery store whenever possible
  (When I asked for paper the other day, I got a handle-less paper bag inside a plastic bag. So beware the devious checkout clerk.)
• Don’t take a bag when you don’t need one
  (This happens all the time: you buy a small item, and before you know what hit you, the clerk is handing you a plastic bag. So you have to be vigilant, and be prepared to extricate your items and leave the bag behind.)
• Purchase a couple of re-usable bags and begin carrying them around.