Cheap Reusable Bags Are Worse Than Plastic Ones

Originally published Sep 15, 2012

So you've spent a couple bucks on the "reusable" canvas-y looking bags near the checkout aisle.  Then you forget it the next time you shop so you buy a couple more.   Everything seems fine until you use any one of these bags more than a couple times or for something more substantial than a short loaf of very soft bread.  Then they rip.  Now what?  If you throw it away it can take as long or longer than the plastic ones took to degrade.  Can you recycle it? Nope, not unless you have a #5 recycling center for polypropylene products.  Plastic #5 is the same type of plastic that bottle caps are made of and we all remember we're not supposed to leave those in the normal recycling bin, right?  The different plastics melt at different temperatures so they need to be recycled separately at most recycling facilities and the caps can become projectiles when the machines are crushing the plastics at the sorting facility. Although a few major cities now take both bottles and caps, as do some places like Aveda stores (http://www.aveda.com/index.tmpl) and Whole Foods (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/) accept these plastics for recycling, you can always go to http://search.earth911.com/ to find a #5 recycling center near you.  Or just buy a CRESBI crate.  It is a #5 plastic but it'll last a heck of a lot longer than the cheap "reusable" bags flooding the market and soon to be flooding the landfills.