Plastic Carrier Bags - Tips to Reuse and Recycle
By admin on Jul 24, 2007 in Household Waste, Recycling, Featured, Environment, Home & Garden, Guides
Every time you go to the supermarket or buy something from a shop, there is a good chance you take the items home in a plastic carrier bag. Most of these plastic carrier bags are thrown away and end up in landfill sites, even though they could be used over and over again. The problem with plastic carrier bags ending up in landfill sites is that they are usually made from polyethylene, a type of plastic which is non-degradable. The plastic bags you dispose of could therefore take tens, if not hundreds of years to break down.
Although it is not always possible to avoid using plastic carrier bags completely, there are many ways to either reuse or recycle them. Many of the larger supermarkets now even provide recycling collection points for you to return your used plastic carrier bags. If you have your shopping delivered to your door, it may be possible to return the bags by passing them on to the delivery driver.
Here are some tips you can try to reuse and recycle your plastic carrier bags:-
- Keep a supply of carrier bags in the boot of your car to reuse each time you go to the supermarket
- Use the plastic carrier bags as bin liners
- Use them to pick up dog mess from your garden or when you take your dog for a walk
- Use old carrier bags to double bag food waste before disposing of it in your wheelie bin - this will help to reduce smells that can attract flies and vermin
- Place old carrier bags at the bottom of hanging baskets and plant pots as this acts as a good drainage system
- When going on holiday use some plastic bags to keep dirty or wet clothes and shoes away from clean clothing
- Keep a few plastic carrier bags in your garage or under your sink to use when cleaning out your car
- When moving house or transporting items use scrunched up plastic carrier bags to surround items as an alternative to bubble wrap.
Jo | Aug 7, 2007 | Reply
Great ideas for reusing, but wouldn’t refusing the bags in the first place be a better idea? You can buy better bags for rubbish and dog messes and use stronger-last-longer canvass bags at the shops.
admin | Aug 7, 2007 | Reply
In an ideal world maybe, but in reality people are still going to be using plastic bags. This in itself is not necessarily a problem, as long as people start to reuse and recycle them. The main problem is they are ending up in landfill, as not enough people are recycling them. Why buy ‘better’ bags for rubbish and dog mess, which inevitably will be made of plastic, when you can REUSE an old carrier bag.
JoAnn | Aug 10, 2007 | Reply
Are there no biodegradable plastic bags?
confused | Oct 24, 2007 | Reply
I have a question, I always refuse all plastic bags from shops EXCEPT supermarkets. If we systematically refuse plastic shopping bags in supermarkets what should we use as bins? Is it environmentally friendlier to use supermarket plastic bags as bins, in which case we need to keep going back to get new ones or do we purchase bin liners and buy new single use plastic bags? Are the latter more environmentally friendly?
Becky | Nov 3, 2007 | Reply
Woop!
1 Button To WiFi Gal | Apr 15, 2008 | Reply
We have just purchased some cloth bags for our grocery trips. The trick is to remember to bring them with us when we shop:-)
Moxie | Apr 16, 2008 | Reply
These plastic bags can be cut into strips and using a large hook, crocheted into rugs, such as a doormat. Search the web for a pattern, if you need one.
Andy | May 25, 2008 | Reply
The resources that go into creating, transporting and disposing of plastic bags is a larger problem than the non biodegradable nature of polyethylene. Polyethylene is made from Ethylene, which is a produce of the petrochemical industry. So when countries go about invading each other in order to secure oil supplies, a significant amount of the money they get in return will come from supermarkets and the like giving us ‘free’ plastic bags. This stuff is never free, the real costs are just pushed out into someone else’s back yard.
It’s not just bags, every bit of packaging you see (and supermarkets must be the worst offenders by far) has been in some way ripped out the ground, transported half way across the world, processed, then shipped again a few times. Then we use it for 10 minutes convenience and throw it away! It’s insanity to think that the world can keep on sustaining this kind of behavior.
We have elected to give a handful of companies control of our consumer habits, so let’s make them do it properly. Make them responsible for the refuse they sell, make them lead the way in encouraging recycling, make them pay for research into sustainable consumption and technologies that enable it.