One of the casualties of Hurricane Katrina was the city sponsored curbside recycling program. 
Before the storm, I faithfully filled my little blue bin and placed it by the street every week for the recycling truck to come by and empty. Did I make a real impact? In a city that measures the success of an event by the tons of trash produced, probably not. But it sure did make me feel better to know that at least some of the garbage produced by my family wasn’t ending up in a landfill, taking up space better used by other items that could not be recycled.
One of my pet peeves is the huge number of plastic grocery bags I accumulate. With 2 kids still at home and 2 that come by to visit often, I buy a lot of groceries. Lots of groceries = lots of those plastic bags. More than I have room for.
But throwing them away makes me feel so guilty! Do I really need all of those bags just to get my groceries from the store to my house? There’s something to be said for the Sam’s Club practice of not using bags at all…except for the fact that it’s a big pain in the butt to schlep everything from the car to the house and I almost always break something in the process. Did I mention that I’m clumsy sometimes?
Then there is The Paper vs Plastic Debate. Plastic – bad. Paper – also bad. And some stores still don’t offer any options except plastic. Yikes! What’s a girl with hungry kids, dogs and a cat to do?
Standing in the checkout line at the store today, the solution was hanging on the rack – staring right at me from that “impulse buy” section filled with candy, gum, and the celebrity gossip magazines.
For only 99 cents each, I bought 2 reusable grocery bags that held all of the items I was buying with room left over for more. Had I let the checkout lady use the plastic bags, I’m sure she would have used way too many. After all, she tried to put the reusable bags into a plastic bag after she scanned them. Ahem…hello!
Anyway, I figure it’s a start to ridding myself of the guilt of bringing home throwing away all of those plastic bags. With a couple of more trips to the store, I should have enough reusable bags to do all of my weekly shopping. Thanks to the folks at Rouse’s Supermarket for giving me a chance to focus on all of the other things I should feel guilty about.
Need more information on recycling in New Orleans? Here are some resources:
- Recycle New Orleans – a directory of places that reuse and recycle materials in the New Orleans area
- Take part in a web campaign directed at the Mayor and Council Members of the City of New Orleans, asking for the return of curbside recycling in the city.
- New Orleans Group Sierra Club
- Greenlight New Orleans
- Participate in the City’s Recycling Survey
- Sign up for paid local recycling through Phoenix Recycling (No plastic grocery bags accepted)
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Lisa,
I have been using these bags for a while out here in Oregon and they are great. We also have insulated ones, so if you need to go someplace else, you can put your milk and other refrigerated items in one for a little bit.
Well worth the money AND they are really sturdy. The hardest part is remembering to keep them in your car or grab them before you go to the store. I have a lot of them (like 10) so that I always have a few in my car in case I forget.
It’s great that folks are finally getting to the point of purchasing re-usable bags.
However, most of those re-useable bags at the grocery check-out
ARE MADE OF PLASTIC!!
So be sure to check that the bags or tote you use are made of a sustainable material like cotton or hemp.
Buyer beware. Read labels to assure sustainablitly. The last thing we want to do is keep supporting the plastics industry while thinking we are being “Green”.