Recycling Plastic Bags

Well I completed my pantry project and I'm happy with the way it turned out. During this project, I stumbled upon many plastic bags! Most of them are from grocery shopping. Now, I do not believe the particular store in which I shop has a bin to recycle plastic bags. That is my next project - to talk to the manager and find out on my next shopping trip. I have never seen one outside the store.

I sent an email to a local Mom's group I am apart of, asking for help in recycling these plastic bags. Someone quickly responded that a local supermarket (that I do not shop at) has several of these plastic bag recycling bins outside of the store! I was all too happy to drive over there the next day and take my plethora of plastic bags for drop off! I kept about 10 bags at home in the pantry and I put 5 in my van...some to use in the future for wet clothes (we visit the beach often) and others to use as a trash bag for the van. All of the others I put in the bin. Wow, that made a lot of extra space in my pantry too!

I am continuing my search for recycling the plastic bags. I was in another supermarket today very close to my home and asked if they had a recycling bin for the plastic bags. The cashier did not know. It is a friendly place and she happily asked another employee. It turned out the answer was "yes." So I also found another location for recycling the bags.

This brings me to my next question: should I purchase and use fabric bags? If anyone does this, I'd love to hear from you! I just found this site about reusable bags and helping the environment. So I will be exploring it some more.

Reducing Mail Clutter & Helping the Environment: Catalogs

I previously posted about bringing less into our homes...through the mail. Click here to read my previous post. If there is less mail in the mailbox that means less comes inside. This give me more time in my day as I spend less time going through the mail and ripping it up or shredding it. My thinking is if I have less in the mailbox, then there is less waste coming into the house. Thereby saving me time and helping the environment with less paper being sent out.


Here is an interesting article with some suggestions on eliminating catalog waste. To read the full article, click here. The article gives you two options to minimize the catalogs that arrive in your mailbox. How many catalogs do you receive a month? Do you find you receive too many catalogs? If so, can you reduce some of your catalog waste?