Bagging the Bags

It was recently announced that the Ontario government is going to implement programs to try to reduce the number of plastic bags used by the average consumer. It was noted in other discussions that even though many people have reusable grocery bags, very few of them use them. They are simply not in the habit of remembering to bring them to the grocery store.

A few weeks ago I decided to tackle the bag problem in my own household to try to figure out practical ways that I can decrease not only the number of bags that I use, but also get into the habit of remembering to bring my reusable bags when grocery shopping. I am pleased to report that since then I have been able to decrease my bag usage by about 65%!

Here is how I did it.

1) Bag audit. I gave some thought to when I use bags. The answer was: for poop and scoop when dog walking [about 3/day]; to line the kitchen composting pail [about 3/week]; lining the kitchen garbage pail [about 1/week].

2) Bag alternatives. Clearly the biggest bag demand was with the dogs. I was stumped for awhile about alternatives until my husband suggested that rather then using a bag for each deposit, why not use one bag and pick up the deposit with a piece of newspaper which is then deposited in the bag to be carried on the walk. This works!

For the kitchen composting pail I followed the suggestion of a nearby municipality that encourages home owners to line their pails with newspaper, then simply bundle up the newspaper to carry the compost to the outdoor bin. Again – another winning idea!

The kitchen garbage pail is one of the few areas where there was no alternative, however with the usage being so minor I am not fussed about it.

3) Habit changing. I must admit, I was like the majority of people with a wonderful collection of reusable bags that I would never remember to grab them when going grocery shopping! My solution is to try to always have at least one reusable bag in the car with me [unfortunately, grocery shopping for me often means a car drive]. Now, part of the routine of putting away groceries is to return the reusable bags to the car.

I am pleased with how relatively painless and surprisingly successful decreasing our household bag usage has been. All that it really took was a little bit of creative problem solving and one habit change. The next challenge that I face is that sometimes I do not have enough bags for the few things I need them for! Hmmmm.