"plastic bags" news and stories

Choosing not to bring a reusable bag to the grocery store might cost you in the near future. Lawmakers in Connecticut have proposed a bill that would charge 5 cents for plastic or paper bag use, with a hearing scheduled for Wednesday. Plastic bags are already taxed in D.C., and Oregon has similar legislation in the works.

The 5-cent fee proposed by Connecticut lawmakers would be used for municipal recycling efforts, reports the Associated Press, but it also serves as a deterrent. Now that resuable totes are easy to come by (most grocery stores have them for sale), environmentalists want plastics done away with.

Remember how ten or twenty years ago, a trip to the grocery store always concluded with the same question: "Paper or plastic?" That question has largely been answered, as grocers now default to plastic about 80 percent of the time. Those plastic bags are cheap, convenient -- and an environmental menace. At best, they mar the landscape, lending an aimless, trashy vibe to urban streets. Far more disturbingly, they clog our landfills, use up nonrenewable resources such as petroleum, and kill wildlife both on land and in water, according to the Earth Resource Foundation.

Some communities and even entire countries are attempting to kick the plastic bag habit by taxing them, encouraging citizens to switch to reusable shopping bags. The state of California may be next, according to the L.A. Times. Bill AB 1998 would take things a bit farther than a simple tax, however -- it would enforce an outright ban. Customers who forget to bring reusable bags to the store would have the option to pay a minimum of 5 cents apiece for recycled paper bags.

Let's be honest: While we all want to help the planet, the "green" trend has become so ubiquitous that it can feel overwhelming. Are you tired of feeling a nagging sense of guilt rising up every time you make a purchase or throw away a paper cup? Let Bea Johnson be your guide.

In the last three years Johnson, a married mother of two from Mill Valley, Calif., has become an advocate for what's become known as the "zero-waste" movement and completely transformed her life. And she swears we can all do it too.

She's not just talking about bringing your own bag into a grocery store once in awhile. Johnson makes her own cloth bags out of used bedsheets, she also brings her own glass jars to the supermarket to collect cheese, fish, and meats. (Yes, jars.) In fact, you won't find a speck of plastic in her kitchen. Milk and juice go into glass bottles too as do her homemade jams, mustard, and salad dressing.

Johnson started downsizing when she and her husband Scott moved the family into a house that was half the size of their previous residence about three years ago.

Zip-close bags are great for food storage, but they serve a multitude of other purposes in the kitchen, too.

Many of us remember to reuse plastic grocery bags, but here are some tricks for getting the most out of those vegetable and bread bags.