Tote-ally Set
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”
– Robert Swan
On my quest to live a more sustainably and getting the very cool adulting token of achievement, a Farmgirl Sisterhood merit badge for “Shopping Green” I have been acquiring totes. Before I delve into the how, what, when and where of it I want to share why using totes matters.
Often I hear people, including my snarky teenage son, that doing “x” won’t make a difference because the problem is too big, or if someone else did something it would have more of an impact. Well, that is the curse of change, it is hard to see our full impact. However, people smarter than me have figured out how many plastic bags an individual uses in a year (roughly 365). I have a family of 3, so that means that we go through 1,095 plastic bags. But why is that bad?
These bags are typically made from non-biodegradable materials, meaning they will not break down naturally and instead persist for hundreds of years in our environment. As a result, the negative effects of single-use plastic bags are vast. One of the most significant negative impacts of single-use plastic bags is their contribution to marine pollution. These bags can be mistaken for food by marine animals, leading to ingestion and potential suffocation, and can also entangle animals such as sea turtles and seabirds, leading to injury or death.
The accumulation of plastic debris in our oceans is not only harmful to marine life but also to us as humans. The toxic chemicals can be absorbed by fish and ultimately consumed by humans. When plastic bags are thrown away, they often end up in landfills, where they can take hundreds of years to degrade. As they degrade, they release harmful toxins into the soil and water, negatively affecting the surrounding ecosystem. Additionally, when plastic bags are incinerated, they release toxic fumes into the air, contributing to air pollution and respiratory issues.
This just highlights why it is important to make any step, no matter how small, to improve these conditions. So how did transitioning away from single-use plastic bags go?
I have never been one to let something going unused linger in my house. I did not have a stash of random bags gathered from conferences, giveaways and the like. If I had, I would have started by using those and only picked up new ones when the need arose. I started by picking up a set of large canvas totes from Amazon. (link here) Then I decorated the bags so I was more excited to use them. I put the Rooted Hearth logo on it, and eventually added my Farmgirl Sisterhood patch to it. I fudging loved these totes, they hold like 90% of the weekly groceries. My husband even prefers carrying the groceries with them. He is able to get them in with fewer trips and prefers the sturdiness.
While they met my largest need, I still needed more to fit all my groceries on large weeks, or for small trips that require a smaller bag. To fill that need I got 5 small-medium sized. I found some cute ones with the national parks (link here).
Once I had the goods the hard part really started, remembering to bring them. At first, I always forgot them in the car, but I refused to just shrug it off and often secured my full cart in an out-of-the-way place, trek out to my car past the greeter only to reenter minutes later with arms full of totes quickly giving an embarrassed announcement of “Forgot my bags".” Over time the forgetting happened less and the routine slowly built.
So what impact has it had? Welp, we have run out of our massive stash of grocery bags that would be used as trash bags (especially for puppy accidents in the house). Which meant that I had to find a replacement for our small trash bags. It felt redundant to just then buy plastic trashbags. So I did some research and found some biodegradable bags. The longer I do this, the less pollution I will be contributing.
I know it may not seem like a lot, and these are just small steps, but I have enjoyed this process. Big change doesn’t happen immediately, it takes small steps. Once I conquer this I can look into more sustainable actions to incorperate.
Photo by Anna Shvets: https://www.pexels.com/photo/fruits-in-a-plastic-bag-3645504/
