Just saying "No!" to plastic bags

Previously, I wrote about plastic bag recycling options, at least around the Seattle area and hopefully it's also far more widespread around the United States. In some cases, you can't get around lots of plastic bags piling up in the home such as the plastic air bubbles from shipping, or the plastic wrapping around furniture. The plastic probably shouldn't be outright eliminated given that it's there to protect the items, and thankfully there are ways to give plastic wrap a second life.

Comparison of natural beauty versus plastic garbage (from pixabay)

But in general, if possible, it is better to not use any plastic in the first place. I hadn't really thought about this much until a few years ago, when I saw a coworker ordering fast food decline the plastic bag. This was a tiny slap in the face for me - why didn't I also just say no? I usually never need a plastic bag for most takeout if I'm just taking it to the office! It's such an easy way to reduce waste, and plastic waste is a big problem today.

Maybe this plastic bag was from a younger me... I hope not, but the thought is nauseating (Wikimedia commons)

Since then, I've been able to cut down on plastic bag usage from a lot of sources - restaurant takeout back to the office (I can just carry it back), grocery stores (I have a pretty strong resuable cloth bag that can carry a lot), and even the plastic bags used to wrap produce - since the area I'm in accepts curbside compost, I take clean compost bags to put produce in, and then when done with the produce, I have compost liner! It was a way to introduce cut a bit more waste out of the grocery shopping process.

I hope this gave you ideas on how to reduce plastic bag waste; but a lot of this depends on recycling or composting infrastructure in the area. I think curbside composting, though, should be a part of any modern country's infrastructure, rotting food in landfills