Everything is always greener on the other side

It’s time to BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag!)—and the party is at your local grocery store (or market). The U.S. is not just behind Europe in terms of the latest fashions and up-to-date trends, but in more important areas as well, including food, exercise and recycling.

While Jeff Foxworthy is raking in the green for his “You might be a redneck if…” jokes, I think Kari is onto a brilliant little coffee table book with humorous anecdotes beginning, “You know you’re in France when…” Her blog on April 5 gives her a head start, beginning, “You know you’re in France when you see an advertisement for Tic Tacs that include a prominent disclaimer with the reminder, ‘For your health, avoid eating food with too much sugar.’” (Of course, in the idea that this could play out and result in millions, I hereby copyright this idea:)

But on to bagging. Last year when I was in Montpellier, I thought one of the highlights of going to Carrefour (the Wal-Martish store) was watching all the customers bag their own items and do so with cloth bags, book bags and other types of reusable bags brought from home. I even bought my own purple shopping bag that doubled as a beach and pique-nique carryall.

Now that I’m back in Jacksonville shopping at Winn Dixie and Wal-Mart, I have an entire collection of plastic bags. Sure a couple of bags are good to have around to act as trash can liners or dirty cleat holders (it’s no good to keep getting mud in your car after a good game of ultimate Frisbee), but enough is enough. Michelle’s mom is the only person I know who actually uses all of the bags she’s ever acquired by making plastic bag rugs.

You could even make a bag of bags to take with you the next time you go shopping. I can just see it now... "Would you like paper or plastic bags?" "Oh, no thanks, I brought a few of my own." What a conversation starter!

An article that came out Monday on Yahoo! informed us that Americans are unconscious when it comes to recycling bags. It said, “The Christian Science Monitor reports that nationally, ‘less than 1 percent of 100 billion plastic bags tossed each year get recycled.’”

Bags are indeed recyclable, if that’s your question. The ones I’m currently harboring above the washer and dryer will find a safe home in a recycling bin at Wal-Mart soon. Other grocery stores, like Publix, also have boxes for bags if you look for them. However, Yahoo!’s article states that the typical plastic grocery bag, made from petroleum products, “takes anywhere from 450 to 1,000 years to break down.”

A March CBS news article highlighted San Francisco as the first North American city to take action, passing a law that “prohibits large grocery stores and drugstores from using non-recyclable and non-biodegradable plastic bags made from petroleum products.” In the bustling city of 740,000, the ban is “expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4.2 million kilograms annually.”

This is good, but you can help make it better. Recycling is even stylish now, with reusable bags available in all shapes, with trendy colors and custom sizes. Many markets such as Whole Foods and Wild Oats have them for sale inside the store, but they are also easily ordered online at sites such as www.reusablebags.com.

Live on the “other side;” go greener!