Reusable Shopping Bags: What Good Reusable Shopping Bags Do?

I remember being taught about the three Rs towards a better environment during school in my elementary years. It stood for Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. Back then, I thought of that reminder only in terms of passing an aspect of my science subject. Quite frankly, I was not too keen on following the three Rs. I have always thought that although it probably had a weight of truth in it, its nature was too idealistic to expect the desired results. Besides, back then I was quite ignorant about how seemingly little actions could result to dire consequences.

Today I understand this. How could I not? I see trashes littering the streets that I walk in and I see people thoughtlessly burning their garbage and next thing I know, I hear and read about reports on global warming and ozone layer depletion. I may have been bored with some of my science classes, but I have learned enough to know that these two phenomenons do not spell good things for us. And that is even an understatement.

It would take no in-depth analysis to figure out that we need to take immediate action if we hope to prevent environmental disasters from happening; or at least keep their negative effects at a minimum. We know we can not take on big things for the environment if we act alone. But we do know that to get to something big, we need to start with something small. These things can include putting trash in the proper places (specifically our often overlooked, small buddy, the trash can), picking up any piece of trash we see strewing about or reusing whatever it is that can still be reused. And maybe we can start by catering to reusable shopping bags.

Quite simply, reusable shopping bags are those that we use for our purchase-driven inclinations. They are ones that we can use again and again. Why, you might ask, should you use these bags over the standard plastic ones?

Reusable shopping bags, as you might gather from the name, are not ones we are inclined to dispose of.
Unlike the plastic bags that we have been so familiar with, shopping bags that are reusable do not contribute to the trash that we see littering about the streets. They do not make their way towards the overgrowing pile of trash on our landfills; they do not make it to the pile of garbage that some of us burn. As is common knowledge, plastic when burned emits chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). CFCs are the main factor behind global warming and ozone layer depletion. It will not be far-fetched to say that if every shopper started with these reusable bags, pollution would be considerably lessened and further ozone depletion would probably be prevented.

Reuse shopping bags or use reusable shopping bags: which is which?
When we say reusable shopping bags, do we mean not disposing of the shopping bags that we have or might come to have so that we can use them again or do we mean purchasing those bags that are made for reusing? Although reusing the bags that you acquire is a good idea and is certainly an environment-friendly one, time will come when they will be torn or worn out after much use, especially when they are made of a material such as plastic. Eventually, these bags will find their way to your trash cans and to being the pollution-causing agents that you were trying to avoid. In answer to this, there are now bags being sold that are really made for reusing.

As you might already guess the terms reusable shopping bags or eco-friendly bags are attached to these types. These are usually made of materials that are significantly more long-lasting than plastic. A lot of these bags that are being sold now are washable too.

We all want to make the world a better place to live in. who does not? However, we are having problems with our environment because we either do not believe that one little action can have big negative consequences or we are plain ignorant of just how damning these consequences can be. In truth, as individuals we can collectively impact our environment in a positive light, even through as simple as using reusable shopping bags.

Seed Newsvine

Bookmark this article in your preferred program

Comments

Add Comment

Popular Articles in this cathegory

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.