Reuse, Repurpose or Recycle?

Nothing, I mean nothing comes into my house without me asking the above question when I am finished using it. To reuse, re purpose or recycle....that is the question!

I will only go into detail about a few ways I achieve this, one mainly being the "plastic carrier bag". The average plastic carrier bag is used for five minutes and can take up to 500 years to decompose, which is madness! Although being small in stature, they take up huge amounts in land fill space, if they even make it there. Many are unslightly sores at the side of the road, intangled in trees and shrubs. endangering small birds and other animals. Biodegradable bags are now becoming more common but I feel the only way that we would truely be "environmentally friendly" would be when we start using less of them and when we are actively aware of our impact further down the road. I am not saying that we should ban the plastic carrier bag completely, but intelligent use of them should reduce our demand for them to a reasonable and manageable level.

In an ideal world, you should always refuse plastic carrier bags at the till and have on hand a fabric reusable tote. This would drastically reduce your imprint on the plastic carrier bag world and if you do find yourself with a few carrier bags in your house, here are some ideas on how to reuse them.

1. Small bin liners. Crazyiness to think that we would throw out perfectly good carrier bags and then buy MORE carrier bags, abet in a larger size for our trash.

2. Storage. Perfect for hanging in the pantry filled with lightweight items.

3. Gro-bags. Filled with soil and doubled up if needbe - a great starting point for seedlings.

4. Picking things up. Smaller "produce" carrier bags are ideal for pooper scooping.

5. Recycle them. I normally take other people bags to recycle them in the ways mentioned above, (as I am in the habit of using fabric totes), BUT it is possible to return them to the supermarket, where normally - there is a bin at the front entrance for recycling plastic bags.

I have even gone onto the next level with my environmentalist soapbox stance and started to CROCHET with the carrier bag! Although it takes a lot of bags to achieve a small, (yet infinitely sturdier!) bag, which then can be used for storage of say washing line pegs outside. I will blog at a later date on how to do this, if anyone is interested.