A plastic bag. Littering the beach. Wrapped around a turtle's neck. Floating in our ocean. Lifeless fish floating to the surface.
This image tugs on my heart strings. I'm not immune to the horror of the ruining of our Planet. The giver of life as we know it.
However, some of our best intentioned efforts seem hilariously doomed to fail. I won't forget when my university first introduced the paper straw, with its integrity fully collapsing under the load of my PB Monkey Smoothie. Surely if plastic straws really were destroying our ecosystem, a campaign to make me sip straight from the cup was a better bet. At least the signs in the bathroom encouraging me to take shorter showers made me question if I truly needed to stand there getting blasted by warm water for an extra minute.(In hindsight, I question if this wasn't just a ploy to lower the University water bill... dammit they got me.)
The newest in this litany of failures is the reusable bag. To clarify, I'm not discussing the nice clothed tote bag you purchase for $20 and get many reuses from. Rather, the somewhat shiny, extremely thin bag that shows up with my grocery order every week.
Ordering groceries to be delivered brings me shame. However, my lack of car ownership and the relative distance of all grocery stores from my house makes this a logistical reality.
Every week, 4 or so bags appear at my house, symbols on their sides touting their reusability. But... are they? 4 more bags get added to our every growing pile of them at the foot of the coat closet. I've looked into it- where the hell are these supposed to go? Can I return them? No easy answer, at least where I live.
Growing up, we had a stash of the classic plastic grocery bag. Sure, they might litter our oceans, but they were also great for picking up dog poop. At least we were accomplishing Reduce and Reuse.
This morning I had enough. I opened the closet to prepare to brave the sleeting rain and cold. The bags fell out. I scooped them under my arm and straight into the can outside my door. Not a single one of the 3 Rs ticked. I hope the turtle who this bag eventually chokes will appreciate that at least we had the right idea.