I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you….

With that said, I’m currently living in Dublin, and it’s been surprisingly easy to adapt to living without plastic bags. Sure, there’s the initial shock of going to a grocery store and being charged for bags, but you learn quickly. From what I’ve seen, no one misses the bags either. When they pop up (and they do), most seem somewhat surprised to see them again.

If anything, I think the biggest adjustment would be that of switching the American mindset from buying in bulk to buying what you can feasibly hold.

As for taking a bag with you just in case you want to stop off after work, its something that you get used to really quickly. So much so, that if you get a few fabric or string bags, you can keep one in your bag, a couple at work and a few at home. Really it’s no big deal.

After you get used to using cloth or string bags you will start refusing bags as much as you can. And then when you get an accumulation of plastic bags in your house you wonder where they came from!

Sam Ash (though I’m sure many others) carry these little nylon bags and case that fold up so TINY. They’re made to attach to your key chain. They are ridiculously tiny. Not as big as baggu, but great for when you pick up milk and Stouffer’s on the way home from the office. I gave a bunch of them as part of my Christmas gift to friends this year. And I think they actually use them (at least that’s what they tell me).

So, one small step for the environment, I hope.

For spur-of-the-moment purchases, I use whatever bag/purse I am carrying, or I just carry things by hand, or some combination of the two. Also, sometimes a clean, empty plastic bag is lying usefully somewhere nearby… Some stores, like Whole Foods, have a leave-one/take-one receptacle. Anyway, walking or subwaying home with a few groceries or what-have-you in my arms doesn’t feel like a big deal.

My roommate still accepts plastic bags with her purchases, so our supply isn’t running low. We use them instead of store-bought plastic bags for all of our garbage and composting. Still, we could be doing better: there are biodegradable bagging options out there, like bags made from corn. We could use those for trash, compost, kitty litter, poop duty…

Here’s one example:
http://www.ecoproducts.com/Home/home_biobags/home_index_biobags.htm

My only concern – We save every, single plastic bag we bring home to use to clean out our cat’s litterbox. Without them, we’d have a hard time transporting litterbox waste to the dumpster outside. I imagine the same goes for people who take their dog out for a walk with plastic bags to clean up after them.

Has anyone found an environmentally friendly way to clean their cat litterboxes?

I was in Budapest last year, where every supermarket charged for bags (I don’t think it was a legislative thing, just common practice) It wasn’t much – but enough to make people think about it. I really noticed the difference. Hardly any of the locals used them, and we tried to mimimise our use when we were there – putting things in handbags when possible, or just carrying some items outside of bags. By the end of the week, we carried our own bags with us to reuse.

I have linked to this post from here: http://kittensinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2008/01/plastic-bag-amnesty.html

Love the Baggubags, Laura – and pleased they deliver to the UK!!