Why we are Refusing and How we are Reusing, Plastic Bags

Plastic bags are slowly being recognised as a serious environmental hazard all over the world. This post will delve into the importance of finding your why for changing habits and using reusable bags, how to function with new everyday routines and what to do with the plastic bags you still have in your home.

Posted by Shea on March 23, 2014

“Those who start with WHY never manipulate, they inspire. And people follow them not because they have to; they follow because they want to.“

Simon Sinek.

Many of you who are reading these weekly posts are possibly wondering – ‘Why has Shea become so passionate with saying NO to plastic bags?’

This image visually sums up my WHY we are refusing plastic bags and is the answer to your question, until a concise slogan is confirmed.

The purpose of this blog and ultimately the journey, is to respect today and to preserve our tomorrows. Days like these are spectacular and when we tread lightly, leaving places either exactly how we found them or better (refer to a previous article introducing Take3 ), our lifestyle as we know it is preserved.

This is the motivation behind consistently creating positive habits to reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose and upcycle.

The more people who consider this thought process as normal, the higher the odds are of future generations experiencing days such as shared in the image above.

Start with working out your WHY and then take actionable steps to make it happen!

Here are some of the ways we have found to reuse the plastic bags which still manage to enter our home

Pack them up and return them to your local supermarket recycle bin. Some stores position them in more obvious spots than others, so you might need to scout around to find them.

Or alternativiely, perhaps you know a business who could reuse them?

Before learning about supermarket recycling bins, a health clinic we frequently visited welcomed our extra bags to use in their small grocery store
My Mother-in-Law takes her unwanted plastic bags to a local nursery
Some Child Care Centres use them to send home any children’s wet clothes

Is there a charity shop or preloved clothing store in your area who would gladly reuse your shopping bags? (And incidentally, plain brown paper bags are useful to reuse for wrapping gifts).

They make great garbage bin liners. If your kitchen rubbish bin is shopping bag size there is no need to buy bin liners (cheaper option as well). This bin size suits our family of four as we have a separate bin for recycling, a scrap bin for feeding the chooks and a compost bin in the garden.
Use the smaller bags as covers for leftover food in the fridge or, for storing and separating food in your freezer.

We have no more plastic bags, now what will we line our bins with?

Now we are saying ‘No to plastic bags‘ we are getting low on our own supply which we reuse as garbage bin liners. In the next couple of weeks our rubbish bin won’t be lined with plastic bags – eek! That has been our ‘routine’ forever…

The Planet Ark website is full of all sorts of information ranging from facts and figures around plastic bags as well as everyday tips for using them wisely.

Saving bread bags is one great idea we have taken on board from their list of suggestions and will work great as bin liners. My Husband remembers his (Grand) ‘Ma’ reusing bread bags when he was a child. Looks like we are going full circle and going back to a bit of ‘old school’ thinking…

They will be perfect to hold any messy rubbish which doesn’t fall into either the ‘Chook Scraps’ or ‘Compost’ category once we take the leap and not line our kitchen bin with a grocery bag. Our general rubbish is plastic anyway and, if occasionally messy packaging can’t be or isn’t rinsed prior to tossing, the bin will get a wash.

Another great suggestion is to line your bin with newspaper to mop up any spills…easy! (I think).

Pin For Later

I would love to hear any other ideas you have on how to manage plastic bags. Feel free to ‘overload’ the comment section below or visit us over at Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest our social media accounts.

Until next week,

X Shea

P.S. Photo credits for the amazing ‘Feature Picture’ at the top of this post go to the very talented Karlie at Captured by Karlie. It is with pleasure we give her a huge plug hoping she will allow us to feature her work frequently on this website – sure would love some help with photography!