The Great Plastic Bag Challenge

Before I started on my attempt to live a greener lifestyle, I thought I’d assess my energy efficiency to see where I would be starting from.

After a disappointing result from the Carbon Gym, where my CO2 emissions were revealed to be almost double the suggested Global Fair Share of 2.5 tonnes despite recycling and always using public transport (although much less than the UK average of 11.3 tonnes), I used myabodo to calculate how energy efficient my house is.

The results were pleasing, as I appear to be more energy efficient than I thought, though there is clearly room for improvement.

My first challenge is to stop using plastic bags. According to sayNOtoPLASTIC.co.uk, the average plastic bag takes over 300 years to degrade, and approximately 17 billion bags are given away each year in the UK alone. Aldi already charge 3p for a plastic bag in their stores, and Marks and Spencer are following in their footsteps with a 5p per bag trial in the South-West of the UK, so now seems like the ideal time to try using more environmentally friendly alternatives when shopping. However, this is more difficult than it seems, as I discovered during a quick trip to the shops. When offered several plastic bags to carry my purchases in in Acorns, an ethical issue arose: is it acceptable to use plastic bags from charity shops? (I did in the end, but only because I’d forgotten to bring anything else.)

Remembering to use alternatives to plastic bags is not as easy as it sounds; many stores will pack your goods for you, leaving you looking awkward when refusing them, but once I’d remembered that I was supposed to be bringing my own bag, it became simpler. I do not recommend, however, going shopping without anything to carry your goods in, as I found out when I went on a junk food run for four friends; five packets of crisps do not fit into trouser pockets.

So what can you use instead of plastic bags? sayNOtoPLASTIC sells bags made of Jute,a natural fibre that will break down in 3 months if buried, and many of the major supermarkets sell reinforced plastic bags suitable for multiple uses, so as long as you can remember that you’re supposed to be doing it in the first place, it should be simple to say no to plastic bags.