What do you do with your plastic grocery bags?

Seattle is going to begin charging .20 cents to every customer who uses plastic grocery bags. Do you bring a bag from home? Would you be willing to be charged for this?

For those of you that shop at Aldi, you know that you need to bring bags from home or you can purchase bags at the store. I have always brought bags to Aldi but never thought about bringing them to other grocery stores. I always recycled my plastic bags from other grocery stores or used them to pick up our dog's poop. Even though I recycled, I know that there is more that I can do to help the environment.

My friend Laurel uses her own bags when she grocery shops. She showed me her canvas bags she uses at Meijers. Many grocery stores offer their own bags, but I really like Meijer's bag. You know me, I have shopped around. They are a great size, and they have a loop on them that fit on the twirly thing that most stores use to bag their groceries.

If you do get the plastic bags, there are 2 places in our town that I know of that recycle them - Walmart and Kroger.

I keep a rubbermaid storage tote in my truck with all of my canvas grocery bags and a couple of insulated grocery bags. It is the type of tote that Clean Sweep (on TLC) uses. It has 2 handles on it and it is very narrow so it doesn't take up a ton of space. I leave this in the car, because there are times that I decide to run into the grocery store on my way home from work or an errand. This way they are always available. After I bring the groceries into the house, I take the bags bag out to my truck so they are available for the next shopping trip.

I use this tote to store my canvas bags, plastic bags that I need to recycle, picnic blanket, and umbrella.

I am looking for a small canvas bag to keep in my purse to use when I shop at other stores such as Target, Kohl's, etc.


Article about Seattle's new policy:
http://couponing.about.com/b/2008/07/29/grocery-store-news-seattle-approves-fees-on-shopping-bags.htm?nl=1

Just thought I would share some things that will begin to impact us at our grocery stores!