Forget the Speech that Moved the Stone

I consider myself fairly eco chic, and have always made an effort to reuse and recycle everything that I can. For better or for worse, I was raised to be conscious of the waste that I leave this planet. That's probably why my husband refers to me as a pack rat, and people who help me clean up after events think I go overboard to save cans and bottles. In support of my coffee habit, I also make it a point to carry my own travel mug to use for any beverages I purchase, and I'm confident that over the past few years I have saved hundreds of paper cups and cardboard javajackets. However, one thing I know I could be better at is using my own shopping bags when I shop at the grocery store or at Costco. I usually have them in my car somewhere, but I can't seem to regularly remember to bring them into the store with me.

So, for the month of September (HOLY COW, IT'S SEPTEMBER?!), I am committing to myself and to my environment that I will not use a new plastic bag. I will take the extra time to go back to the car if I forget to bring in my own, or limit the number of items I buy to what I can carry. We have plenty of bags in the kitchen closet to help clean up after Bosco, and pretty much everything else I could need one for should be covered by a re-usable bag. My hope is that this will create a habit and this effort will become second nature to me.

Working on a case last year about Wal-Mart's efforts to Green its business practices, I discovered some astounding facts about global uses for shopping bags. For example, in Singapore, more than one million plastic bags change hands every day. Almost a quarter of the trash collected is made up of plastic wrappers and bags! While most gets incinerated, too much of it ends up in marinas and rivers, choking wildlife and polluting the water.

In efforts to inspire myself, and potentially others, I will also commit to posting additional research along with my progress once a week through this experiment. Here we go!