Make a Difference – Refuse a Bag!
An estimated 13 billion plastic bags are used in the UK each year.
Shopping with a bag for life or re-usable bags is much better for the environment and a relatively easy way to start going green. And a good example of how lots of people acting together in a small way can add up to a big difference.
Plastics can take up to 500 years to break down in a landfill; plastic bags and other plastic rubbish thrown into the ocean kill are believed to kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.
By simply keeping a store of re-usable shopping bags handy and refusing a store bag whenever we shop, together can save literally billions of throw-away bags going to landfill or polluting the ocean each year!
It takes practice to get into any new habit and must confess that on more than one occasion I’ve staggered home with an armful of groceries when I forgot to take my bag and stubbornly refused to take the store bag
I also found that you do have to be quick off the mark in some shops to stop the assistant putting your shopping into a store bag – even the shops who have signs claiming that they will ask before giving you a bag!
I used to get some very strange looks at first, especially in clothes shops – and I always make sure to get the till receipt to prove I’ve paid. But there has been a lot of publicity about this issue and these days most shop assistants do understand the concept of reusing your own bag.
You also have to plan, no good putting that designer shirt in the same bag as the dirty potatoes or some smelly fish!
But it’s worth it, I wish I’d kept a running total of the number of bags that I’ve refused!
As well as reducing the number of discarded bags that end up in landfill or polluting our oceans, re-using a recycled bag such as an Onya Bag 
instead of getting a new carrier bag each time saves on the planet’s precious resources. A recycled Onya Bag is made from a strong but tightly woven, super-lightweight, parachute type fabric, that is made from recycled plastic bottles (rpet). Recycling plastic takes a fraction of the enrgy used to make virgin plastic and saves landfill space.
The Onya Bag has a good capacity and is cleverly designed to fold away into its own little pouch that fits easily into a pocket or handbag – or clips onto any strap with its handy carabiner clip.
However, around 275,000 tonnes of plastic are used each year in the UK. With dwindling oil stocks, some people prefer to avoid plastic bags altogether; Vert Vivant re-usable Organic cotton string bags are made from Organically grown cotton which means the cotton farmers and the environment are not exposed to the high levels of harmful, polluting chemicals that are used with conventionally grown cotton.
The trick is obviously to find a re-usable bag that really suits your lifestyle and shopping habits and then to get into the habit of popping that bag straight back into your handbag or rucksack as soon as you have put your shopping away, ready for the next shopping trip.
Onya Bags and Vert Vivant bags can be bought on the Green Emporium website.
(Resources: wasteaware.org, greenboxday.co.uk, recyclenow.com, recycling-guide.org.uk, wrap.org.uk, onyabags.co.uk, vertvivant.com)
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