Live like you're in a canoe.

[Callisto]

I watched the BBC Nature program last night about Hawaii (called message in the waves BBC ) and found it really disturbing.

Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific and works like a net to catch all of the crap chucked into the ocean on the Pacific Rim. This means that the leeward side of the islands are covered in plastic - it looks like a landfill.

Worse is the effect this has on the wildlife, in particular the Albatross are really struggling - they pick up what floats on the ocean assuming it is food but it is plastic. They then feed this to their chicks. The chicks die and as they decompose the plastic they have eaten is exposed - plastic lighters, toys, toothbrushes, golf balls etc. Dolphins, seals and turtles are also dying because they get tangled in or try to eat plastic bags.

It is blatantly obvious that our consumer society is unsustainable. We have such a chuck away attitude to everything and it needs to change before it is too late.

You're probably all wondering where this is leading. Well, I have a challenge for those of you with enough of a sense of social and global responsibility to care. The challenge is to not use or accept a plastic bag for a month. When you go shopping take a reusable bag, leave the plastic bags in the shop and make a real difference to your environment.

For those of you who are brave enough I have a further challenge, the Rebecca Hosking Challenge: campaign to get plastic bags banned in your area/town/village. I am working up the nerve to do this where I live and shall update you on any progress that I make. Thanks for taking the time to read this and lets change the world today.

Olive - I know the ones you mean. I think mine are different.

You could also use the jute bags as a beach bag or general carry bag if you needed too.

big blue bag

Arrrggghhh. Rather than piss all and sundry off because I don't scatter every post with smilies just to make sure people know I am not narky/condescending/snappy I shall leave and let you all get on with it.

Brown bags, when I waas a gel, the greengrocer had big wads of brown bags hanging by a string, does anyone else remember those or am I officially the oldest MNer?

and I also have this on order, fold up bag

They still have brown bags hanging from string in our local farm shop.

Sorry if I'm further diluting this thread, but I've just ordered a 25 litre container of Ecover washing up liquid, so i can refill the bottles I already have,saving on packaging. It's not a lot cheaper than buying individual bottles, but I got free delivery and it still works out a bit cheaper...

Is that relevant enough or are we only allowed to discuss plastic bags on here, not bottles?

That fold up shopper looks nice. I get caught out when I impulse buy and don't have any bags on me. That looks a bit prettier than the Onya bags which fold up small and fit in a handbag.

they still have those brown bags in greengrocers

And here are some string bags

muminbrum, my greengrocer still has them!, are we stuck in a timewarp here in north yorks?

I like that fold up bag as well, would fit nicely in ds's changing bag!

when you order online, they use about twice as many plastic bags as they need. Tis v annoying!

Boco, don't things fall through the holes in string bags? That link has just made me think of men with huge beer guts walking around in string vests, shudder.

We have 2 big jute rspb bags that are great for groceries & if I'm going up town I just use dd's Bookstart bag. If a cashier puts my stuff in a plastic bag I take it out & give them the bag back. You should see the looks I get - I can practically hear them thinking 'mental'.

A few years ago a supermarket had the choice of plastic or those big paper sacks that you see on American shows & when I picked up a paper sack the checkout woman said that she never even bothered to offer these to customers as they had no handles

but they are shit wiht no hanldes

But if I lived in a canoe I'd wrap everything in plastic bags to keep it dry ... Seriously though, I'm shocked when we do our supermarket shopping that we're often at the very last checkout, and after we're finished we walk the entire length of the checkouts and do not see a SINGLE reusable bag being packed, it's bright orange Sainsbury's carriers all the way.

I think shops should ALWAYS ask if you want a bag. Clothes shops especially aren't really set up for putting stuff in customers' reusable bags, it would make it easier to do if they asked, rather assuming you want a carrier and you having to jump and say 'no'. The supermarkets are nearly as bad - all this stuff about bags for life etc, but if you use them you have to leap on the cashier before s/he starts packing your stuff into carriers.

This has reminded me though, I MUST remember to take my Lush paper bag into town today to reuse, they might have finished the promotion (?) but it's the reuse that matters, right, not the freebie!

I'm going to post this and run away because Callisto scares me:
"producing plastic bags uses less energy and water and generates less air pollution and solid waste" [compared to producing paper bags].

As you've been saying, not using the plastic bags (and therefore reducing the demand for them) and re-using bags is the answer.

I heard that EU legislation will be sorting this in future but not sure of the deta\ils.

Our local fruit and veg shop (where we do our shopping) still has brown paper bags -another good reason to use them over supermarkets who insist on packaging stuff on plastic trays, wrapped in clingfilm.

Boco - I remember my grtandparents having bags that looked like that. Did they used to be made with steel thread 30 years ago?

yes, the hardest thing is remembering to take the sodding bag with you, isn't it. I have stacks of those huge M&S reusable bags but I always forget to take them out (duh!).

No Fox the holes are small. We usually take one hessian one too for very small stuff like umm, i don't know, something very small, but nothing's ever fallen through before. The ones we have stretch to a massive size, you wouldn't carry them around full - in trolley and into the boot.

[scratches hairy tummy under string vest and swigs special brew]

Actually, if you read the blurb on that link, string bags are coming back into total fashion! [transforms back into glamorous young lady]

Several of our local supermarkets are doing Bag for Life campaigns. Example