Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Day 65 of our Green Year: Reusable Vegetable Bags

Here we are with only 300 days left in Our Green Year, and we have decided to continue our quest to banish plastic items from our house with the banishment of plastic bags for vegetables. We banished plastic bags very early on in Our Green Year, and now we are getting rid of those plastic bags that we keep vegetables in from the store to home and in the fridge, before throwing them out.

These are just as bad for the environment, and they are only used for slightly longer than plastic bags. Instead, Layla and I have decided to do the following with our vegetable bag needs. Since we are trying not to use items like plastic wrap and plastic bags, we won't be getting those bags at the grocery store and reusing them.

  1. Use paper bags, like what you have for mushrooms at the grocery store if we don't have anything to put our fruit in.
  2. Get a small mesh vegetable bag that can hold everything from apples and oranges to nectarines and honeydew melons.
  3. Buying bags that have been made from recycled goods. The RDKB here sells bags that are made from recycled juice containers, they look great and are awesome to use.
One of our Green Friends, Mother's Going Green (http://www.mothersgoinggreen.blogspot.com/) did a blog this week about the types of plastic that are used in the world. Each bag has a symbol (much like the recycle symbol) with a number in it. I took note today of what number is on the plastic bags at the store. For that type of plastic, Mother's Going Green said it was made of high density polyethylene, which is used in everything from milk containers to cereal box liners. It is apparently safe to use, but that is not conclusive. Regardless of the health issues that may be related, it takes 1.75 kilograms of petroleum to make just one kilogram of high density polyethylene. With higher prices for oil these days, don't be surprised if you suddenly have to start paying for those bags.

Got any suggestions for what we can use? Send us an e-mail at crwbaird@gmail.com or leave us a comment!