Plastic bags are great for consumers.
Bottom line, its hard to imagine anything more convenient then an instant bag to group all those items that you just hurriedly picked up from the isles of the shop. I try with the best of them to remember those reusable green grocery bags, but inevitably, I forget or don't have enough, or just plain don't have one on hand. I will continue to try and remember reusable, or bring my old plastic bags when I go to the shops. But I'm human - I know that to be human is to forget sometimes, and be able to recover.
Now - the ideal solution would be if shops just gave out reusable bags, rather then plastic ones. But my instincts tell me that this solution would not be cost effective. That if it was, shops would already be doing this. So... here what I propose.
Let's plan to reuse plastic bags in your garbage bin at home. Inevitably, we try this at home, and the bag doesn't quite fit. Which results in the left over spaghetti all over the bottom of the can, which sucks. So - I would propose that we embrace reuse of plastic bags in home garbage bins, and somebody out there design a kitchen bin to accept all forms and formats of plastic bags from shops. Rather then try to build a bin that only fits their brand of bag, let's get one that embraces and supports the reuse of old bags in bins. This solution is much more practical solution, and uplifting, then brow beating people about "eliminating plastic" or "saying no to plastic". I'm all for that stuff - but this is not a "speed of life" solution.
