A tip to use less plastic bags

Have you realized how many plastic bags you use vs how much you actually use them? Or even more puzzling: All how can I use less plastic bags as a consumer, when every business out there packs your purchases on plastic bags? Let me begin by giving you a quick tip to use less plastic bags as business consumers: just say “no plastic bag, thank you”.

See why we need to stop using so much plastic? We all like turtles man. Check the ZeroWaste movement, they might agree with me.

Last weekend I went for lunch with some classmates to get some sub-sandwiches. Each one of us got a 6-inch sandwich. Each one of us also got a plastic bag that is probably 14-inches long. As of 2014, this company was serving about 5,300 sandwiches per minute, or 7.6 million sandwiches per day (yep, this is worldwide). Think about this for a second: there is a whole army of people out there trying to reduce plastic bags use. Ultimately, leading businesses to join this movement will lead them to get some good PR.

Whatever it is, getting a plastic bag that is 60% or 70% bigger than the original item purchased it’s… worthless? Who is to blame then? Companies are trying, but are we trying – as customers – enough?. If you think of what happened to our plastic sub-sandwich bag after we were done with our lunch, they all went bag to the garbage bin after 1 hour of usage. So, we now have a plastic bag that is way too big for the actual item, and was used 1 hour. On top of that, consider the rest of the sandwiches to be made for the rest of that day. Even though business policies regarding plastic bags usage have changed over the past 20 years, I think the missing step is actually on the consumer (us) this time.

So, how much time does it take for a group of people to ask for 1 single bag? How much can we reduce plastic bags use through this? Try it yourself, just say “no plastic bag, thanks”.