How to Choose Reusable Carrier Bags

Sea creatures such as turtles are eating plastic bags, which are killing them.

Yesterday I took a little look about some of the ways plastic is causing problems and what we can do with the plastic bags we have.

While they might not be our biggest problem plastic bags are starting to become a real danger to animals and they are killing and harming sea life around the British Isles as well as in the rest of the world.

It's not just animals that are threatened by plastic bags floating around freely, in Bangkok careless use and disposal of plastic bags clogged the sewers, posing a flood risk.

Bangladesh has banned the plastic carrier bag for similar reasons.

The problem of plastic bags is also an easy problem to fix.  It's not difficult to stop using disposable plastic bags. Other kinds of disposable bags aren't a great idea either because paper, for instance, needs much more energy to produce than plastic, so it's worse for Global Warming, which is an even bigger problem than plastic.

There is a variety of alternatives to disposable carrier bags.

Most supermarkets now sell strong jute bags with a plastic lining that will last for years. These are useful if you need your bag to be waterproof in case of leaks and spills.  They aren't ideal from the environmental point of view because bits of that plastic lining will find it's way into the environment eventually, but they can last 10 years or more, so you're saving a lot of single use carrier bags including the strong ones. You're also saving the energy that would have been needed to make them.

If you're not sure you need this kind of bag wait until you do need one as they should be easy enough to buy when you're in the supermarket. Some other shops also sell them.




If you want to have a carrier bag to hand at all times a small, light foldable one might be the best thing for your requirements.

About 10 years ago there was a campaign to ban the single use plastic carrier bags and Onya bags, made from parachute material, which was strong and lightweight. These are hard to come by in the UK now.  They are still available in Australia but are now made from recycled drinks bottles.

Buying bags made from recycled material is probably the most environmentally friendly thing to do, so long as the bags are fit for purpose and you will use them. It also makes recycling worthwhile.






Cotton bags aren't such a good idea as they are heavier, less water resistant and growing cotton uses a lot of water in countries where water is in short supply. If the cotton isn't organic a lot of chemicals are likely to have been used to grow it, which probably contribute to pollution and may be a health risk for those who grow it. If you already have a cotton bag it might be just the thing for buying and storing bread without using plastic.

There is a wide choice of foldable and other reusable bags available.

Ethical Superstore have a good selection of foldable bags, many made from recycled materials.

Look for eco tote bags on Amazon.

Little drawstring net bags can be useful for buying fruit and veg as well as bread rolls and small loaves.  This one was made by Onya but other makes are more readily available, unless you live in Australia.










Remember, buying so much as most of us do is one of our biggest problems, so don't rush out and buy anything just yet. Use up the carrier bags you do have first. Think about other bags you already have.  Look around for the most sustainable choice of suitable bags while you're doing that.

Did I forget anything important about we should think of when choosing reusable bags?  Let us know in the comments section.

Next time I'll be looking at other single use plastic items that are easy to do without.

No More Plastic Carrier Bags!

Collection point for plastic carrier bags, when they can't be used any more.

Hello again. It's great to see not only people from the UK, US and Canada are reading this blog, but also people from France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Brazil. It would be lovely if you could leave a comment telling me a bit about yourself and what you find interesting or helpful.

This week I shall be thinking about plastic waste and possible solutions.

You may have watched the final episode of Blue Planet II and been among the many people who were shocked to see albatross parents unwittingly feeding their chicks plastic and mother dolphins potentially exposing their new-born calves to pollutants through their contaminated milk. You may only have heard about it, but since that episode was shown everyone seems to be talking about the huge problem that plastics are causing in our oceans and elsewhere.

In many ways plastic is a marvellous material with so many uses. It's strong, waterproof, harder to break than glass and can be flexible. Unlike metal containers it can go in the microwave. As a rule it's cheaper and more environmentally friendly to produce than paper and metal products.

Plastic is causing problems because it lasts for a very long time.

Another part of the problem is that so much plastic is now being produced for containers and wrappers that will only be used once and which some people simply throw away.

In some parts of the world there are no waste collection services or recycling systems. Some places are too remote to be reached by such services if they did exist in their country.

The volume of plastic produced is making it hard to cope with. China doesn't want any more of our waste plastic, so we must find ways to cut back on the amount we use. According to reports there's already a backlog of plastic waste building up at UK recycling plants and the same will be happening in the US and many other countries.

To stop this becoming a continuing crisis we must do everything we can to avoid single use plastic where at all possible. Avoiding waste of any kind is usually a good idea.

Before watching Blue Planet II you may have heard of dead turtles, whales and sea birds found with their stomachs full of plastic bags, which it's thought they mistook for jelly fish.  Some of this is happening in British waters because of plastic bags from British beaches. The problem is a worldwide problem but it's one we can do something about.

Step One is to reuse any plastic bags we already have until they are no good.

Step Two is to recycle all our old, normal plastic carrier bags. Most supermarkets have a collection point for carrier bags. Branches of Sainsbury's and Waitrose near me do.

Bags that can be recycled in this way might have this logo on them

Step Three, when we've used up our stash of plastic carrier bags is to consider how many reusable bags we might need and what is best for our purpose.  I'll look at that next time.

Stop and Take Stock

Lenten Lilies, or a close relation

Many Christians all over the world are now observing Lent.  Traditionally Lent was a time for fasting, especially going without meat because meat was in short supply at this time of year. The Church turned this into a virtue saying that going without was a way to learn self-control and instigated a 40 day period of fasting to correspond to Jesus' time of fasting in the Wilderness, which in turn reflected the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the Wilderness after fleeing Egypt.

Lent is 40 days plus Sundays. Sundays don't count as fast days because Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday, so that is always a day for rejoicing.   In church today our vicar suggested that the Sundays in Lent could be seen as a glimpse of Easter to come. She also suggested that rather than use Sunday as a day to over-indulge if we've been struggling to keep off chocolate, biscuits, alcohol or whatever all week, we might do better to reflect on how we'd been doing in the week, where we might have struggled and why, so that we could consider how we might do better next week.

So I'd like to encourage you to join me in taking a little time on Sundays to take stock by reflecting on how well we did at fighting Climate Change in the last week and how well we managed to live in a way that did as little harm as possible to anyone or anything.  Hopefully we'll also manage to have a positive effect on the people around us and maybe our environment as well.   These are all things I hope to look at over the coming weeks.

So how did I do?

Your World Needs You to be a Climate Champion!

We need Climate Champions with green carbon footprints to save the world!

So, we've seen that scientists have established that Climate Change and Global Warming have been caused by people, people like you and me who are just doing what everyone else is doing without realising the harm they've been doing.

If we have caused it, we could stop it, in theory. In practice we would have to make some very serious changes to our lives to stop Global Warming entirely and most of us might find that too difficult.

If Global Warming were a dangerous wild animal running towards us some of us would be running away as fast as we can and others would be standing their ground preparing to fight and kill the animal.

Global Warming is not such an obvious threat or so easy to see. We could try to imagine Global Warming as a gigantic dragon curled around our planet.  Think of Smaug in the Hobbit, lying asleep on the dwarves' treasure hoard. Every time we fly or travel in our car we feed the Global Warming dragon encouraging it to breathe fire and cause droughts and wild fires, or to thrash its tail and cause severe storms, hurricanes and flooding.

Global Warming is like an invisible dragon threatening our world

Now we are aware of the threat Global Warming is to the world as we know it, surely we want to do everything we can to fight it by reducing the amount of CO2 we produce and thereby shrinking our personal carbon footprint.

We live in an age that needs heroes and Climate Champions to join in the fight to protect our beautiful world for our children and our grandchildren. We have to stop feeding the dragon!

The most effective way any of us can reduce our carbon footprint is to fly less often. If everyone took fewer flights, airline companies wouldn’t burn as much jet fuel, so they'd send tons less CO2 into the atmosphere.

Less is More

"The earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." - Gandhi

To live is to consume. We need air, water and food to live. We need fuel to keep us warm. If every person in the world lived very simply we'd still do some serious damage to our environment because there are so many of us. However, most affluent people in the world today are consuming with no thought for the future, or what their actions could be doing to people less fortunate than themselves. 

If you're wondering if you count as affluent the answer is probably yes, especially if you are reading this on your own computer. It's worth bearing in mind that if there is food in your fridge, if you have shoes and clothes, if you have your own bed and a roof over your head, you are wealthier than many people in the world.

It's OK to consume, but our consumption is out of control. Our over consumption is damaging our environment and putting lives in danger, including our own.