3 Reasons to Use Reusable Shopping Bags You Might Not Think Of

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Reusable shopping bags have revolutionized my life! They work so much better than those yucky plastic bags you get from the store.

Those plastic bags are overflowing our landfills, clogging up our waterways, flying around all over the world, and getting stuck in trees, power lines, and everywhere else.

Guess what else? They kill animals. When animals see them, they think they might be food and try to eat them. They sometimes choke. They also get wrapped up in plastic and can be strangled, trapped, suffocated, or any number of things. Click here to see what plastic is doing to our world.

So what can we do with all these plastic bags besides throwing them away? (And by the way, if you do throw them away, they are so light, many of them just blow out of the landfill and pollute everywhere else)

Benefits of using reusable shopping bags

One thing you can do is recycle them. That’s a start. Recycling does cost money and energy resources, but it helps cut down on the amount of plastic produced which is a great start.

It’s even better to not get them in the first place. A great place to start is if you are buying one thing, just tell the checker, no thanks, I don’t need a bag. This is a great way to get fewer bags than you normally would.

You can take home even less plastic if you opt for reusable shopping bags that you can use over and over again. You can use any kind of bag you have around the house like tote bags, plastic bags you already got from the store, anything you have that can be filled with groceries, grab it and take it to the store with you.

You’ll sometimes have to do some convincing to get the tellers to fill your bags. Even still this past week, a checker again tried to find the price tag on my old shopping bags. Those are just my shopping bags is my age-old mantra. I’ve been using reusable bags for several years now and even though it’s starting to catch on a little in my area, we still have a long way to go.

I love shopping at Aldi’s because you have to buy bags there, so it helps people remember to do reusable. If you forget your bags at home, you can purchase them there, but it will help people get into the habit of bringing bags to the store or reusing the ones the get there.

Another great place I love to shop is Sav-A-Lot. They have boxes off the shelves you can pack your groceries in. It’s much easier to carry boxes than those cheap bags anyway.

Reusable bags hold more product

I love how when I use my shopping bags, I can get all my groceries in much fewer bags. If you’re like me and have to buy five hundred million items every month at the store, this is a big saving on hassle. Click here to see why shopping once a month saves you money!

Many more items can fit in the bags. When you get to the car, they sit nicely in the trunk or on the seat or floor too. They are much less likely to tip over and roll your products all over the car!

Reusable shopping bags

Reusable bags are sturdy

Reusable shopping bags are so great when you have a super heavy bag full of laundry soap or flour or something because the handles are wider and don’t slice your hands all up like those yucky cheap bags.

You also don’t have to worry about them tearing and your stuff falling all over the place. They feel so sturdy in your hand and you know they won’t let you down on the way to the car or from the car to the house.

You can even make your own reusable bag. It’s so cool. Click here to see how to make your own unbelievably cool bags. You can even dye them naturally. Click to see how. 

Reusable bags take less effort

When you are carrying your groceries in your reusable shopping bags, you won’t have 250 bags to carry, you’ll just have a few. This helps you be able to get all of your things to the house in far fewer trips. I love the time and energy it saves me when I use them. If I ever forget and have to use the flimsy plastic ones, I sure don’t forget the next time because I’m all frustrated and annoyed by the time I get my groceries put up.

Reusable shopping bags are so much easier to use, better for the environment, and they just plain make sense.

If you have a ton of those plastic bags at home, there are so many cool things you can do with them besides throwing them away. And, if you won’t use them, please recycle them instead of trashing them. If you want to re-purpose them, there are lots of ways to do it. Click here to see what my amazing, talented daughter does with hers making plarn.

It takes a while to get into the habit of saying no thanks to plastic bags, but you can do it if you make it a priority. Start today and you’ll be amazed at what a difference just a little planning can make in your collection. There are so many things we might think are recyclable but they actually aren’t. One time use products fill our landfills and overrun our trash systems. Think about what you use before you use it.