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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Saving the Environment One Plastic Bag at a Time

Finally received my package from buyinvite today.  They featured this from their site and gave members almost 50% discount.  So I had to buy, anyway, it's for a good cause.

My Envirosax Flora Pouch.

 


Each pouch has 5 Envirosax reusable bags.

Lightweight polyester, portable, waterproof, and weighing just 1.4oz each, these groovy bags are available individually or as a series of 5 contained within a handy pouch. With reinforced seams, each surprisingly large bag can hold a weight the equivalent of two supermarket plastic bags.
 

Founded by Belinda and Mark David-Tooze in 2004, Envirosax� originates from Currumbin Valley in South East Queensland, Australia. The Envirosax team uses renewable and recyclable products where possible, and is committed to operating on ecologically sustainable principles. Read more about Envirosax here.

Why do I need 5 reusable bags? My plan is to put them in 5 different bags of mine so everytime I change bags, I would always have one wherever I go.


Australia is one country who is very concerned about the environment and it is here that I saw reusable bags being used in supermarkets. I remember my aunt from America buying tons of reusable bags whenever she visits Sydney before. My mom who vacationed here in 2004 brought home a couple of reusable bags with her and it was my first time to see such bags. I never really cared much about it at that time. I thought it was more of a marketing strategy of supermarkets in Australia. Until I migrated here, that's when I learned more ways of helping save the environment, one of which is to bring reusable bags when you do your groceries instead of using plastic bags.

We all know the damage that plastic bag does to our environment (click click click if you don't know!). I hope all of us do our share by minimizing the use of plastic bags and instead keep a reusable bag inside our bags wherever we go.

I always make it a point to have one reusable bag wherever I go and I somehow have a collection of them at home now. A couple of them I keep in the trunk of our car because I use them when we do our grocery and shopping. We still have a couple of plastic bags at home but we only use them for garbage. My goal is to minimize the use of plastic bags and avoid bringing home a lot of grocery bags whenever we do grocery and shopping. It took me awhile to make this a habit but nowadays, I consciously remind myself to ALWAYS bring at least one reusable bag. Sometimes, I'd forget to bring reusable bags to the grocery and I really get mad at myself whenever that happens. It may be just two or three plastic bags but still, I'm not proud of myself carrying home plastic bags nowadays.

Some other tips:
1. If you are only buying a few things and it can in fit your bag, please advice the checkout person that you don't need your bought items to be put in a plastic bag. Just take the receipt and you will be good to go.

2. When paying for the items your chose to buy, immediately give the checkout person your reusable bag/s and tell him/her to put your paid stuff in it instead of putting it inside a plastic bag. In some countries, when you give your reusable bag/s to the checkout person, they know what it is for. If they don't know, tell them, in that way you are also educating them.

3. If you have plastic bags at home, reuse them as many times before throwing them out.