Plastic Bags

It all seems so simple.  You go to the store,your groceries are put in a plastic bag, and you take them home.  Most times, I remember to bring my reusable grocery bags in from the trunk of the car.  

Except when you go to a place where plastic bags have been outlawed.  We are in Seattle this week.  One of our cousins is getting married, and we are here a little early, exploring the area.

Seattle doesn't allow those thin, flimsy grocery bags.  You either bring your own, or you pay $1.50 for each bag.  We stopped by Safeway last night to pick up groceries on our way home, and we don't have our bags with us.  We ended up paying for plastic bags.

Admittedly, these are really nice bags.  They are a heavy duty plastic that will last for quite some time.  I just wasn't expecting the additional cost of the bags!

However, in my quest to cut expenses and live more sustainably, I do need to become more aware of the costs -both the obvious and the hidden - of everything I consume.  

So, besides the $4.50 we laid out for plastic bags, it made me think a little deeper about the nature of plastic bags a little more.  Here are these bags, used to help me get my groceries home.  They are made from plastic -a by product of oil.  Oil prices are going through the roof. 

We really don't think about the consequences of using a non-renewable resource for a one-time grocery run.  We casually toss them away.  I know when I'm home, I see those thin bags wrapped in the upper branches of trees almost everywhere I go.  I know that there is a long term consequence to using those bags. 

But, I need to pull myself back to my original point.  Plastic bags.

So, this morning when we left the hotel, I folded up the plastic bags and stashed them into our backpack.  When we stopped by Safeway on the way back tonight, we pulled them out and used them.  

We were still using plastic bags, but I can honestly say that we've used these bags twice now.  I feel morally obligated to use these until they fall apart.