Saw a Customer at a Local Food Essay

saw a customer at a local food store 'sporting' a reusable grocery bag. But she was buying some plastic garbage bags. This immediately caused me to wonder: might it not be more efficient to stock biodegradable disposable grocery bags that people could use to transport groceries and then use at home as garbage can liners? Perhaps this might cause the least waste of all. After all, although reusable grocery bags may seem better than simply using plastic, disposable bags and throwing them out, many people reuse the disposable bags rather than purchasing grocery bags (which come with packaging and generate other types of waste, through the process of manufacturing and distributing the products).

Another danger of using recyclable grocery bags is that they may be viewed as a panacea, while they do nothing to contain the tremendous waste that results from the use of almost all packaged products, and the fossil fuels generated from manufacturing and shipping.A person who buys steak and puts it in a reusable green bag still has a large carbon footprint, based upon the environmental costs of raising cattle.

Critics of reusable bags point out that manufacturing such bags also results in a great cost to the environment itself. The bags must also be produced and distributed through fossil fuel-burning mechanisms like factories and trucks. They may be unsanitary as storage containers, given that they accumulate potential toxins that can be transferred to food (Goodnow 2007). Fibers such as cotton and jute also extract a cost from the environment because of how they are grown (Reusable bags, 2008, Green living tips).

But perhaps the best reason to use biodegradable plastic bags rather than reusable bags is human nature -- many people buy cloth….....