Alisan chimes in with a rant:

I was standing in the Produce Department at my favorite market Saturday, along with about 14 others, wandering the aisles, poking the fruit and ripping those veggie bags off the spindle like there was no tomorrow.

I did the math, and it was not pretty.

15 shoppers X 5 bags each (let’s say) for grapefruit, lemons, broccoli, what have you,  X 52 weeks per year  = 3900 bags per year for just that 15-shopper set.  We have 3 full-on grocery stores in Jackson. How many grocery stores are there in Wyoming … in the country? You do the math.

My question to you is, why.

If you knew that approximately 12 million barrels of oil go into producing plastic bags EACH YEAR, would you still not make the effort to reuse those puppies for a few weeks?  I mean, at least trying that before drilling the Arctic Refuge?

Here’s the deal:  Plastic veggie bags are a habit, a bad one, sort of like biting your nails or twirling your hair.  We’re so conditioned to this sort of overuse, we don’t even question it.  Question it, heck. We don’t even think about it.  And yet, it’s such an easy fix, one that takes so little input from each of us, one that, were we each able to convince one other person to reuse their bags, the impact over one year would be remarkable.

I don’t know how you break a habit – it took me nearly thirty years to take pride in my fingernails.  But I did it, a private achievement that means not much to anyone but me.  But it means a lot to me.  So, when I get home and empty my canvas tote of all the groceries, I wash the fruit and the greens and into the fridge bins they go, no bags necessary.  And you know what I’ve found?  They’re happier that way.  They last longer than if they were all wrapped up in plastic sheeting.  I use them sooner, because I can see what I’ve got.  My “mystery growth” ratio has plummeted.

And all those bags that came home from the store?  I tie the clean ones in a loose knot and throw them back in the canvas bag for the next shopping trip.  The dirty ones get turned inside out, rinsed off and air-dried, then they meet the same re-useable fate.

The nice thing about changing a habit?  It’s not rocket science!

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