Switching to reusable shopping bags is one of the easiest plastic free swaps to make. But ditching the plastic bags each week during your weekly shop really does make a big difference.
- Every year, we throw away enough plastic to circle the world 5 times.
- Plastic bags cause the deaths of more than 1 million sea birds per year and over 100,000 Dolphins, Sharks, Turtles & Whales.
- It takes a tonne of plastic to make 120,000 plastic carrier bags.
- We use an average of 13 billion carrier bags in the UK each year.
- The majority of these plastic shopping bags are only used once and take up to 100 years to decompose.
-You could drive a car 11 metres on the oil it takes to make 1 plastic bag.
In 2015, the UK introduced a ‘5p carrier bag tax’ to reduce our plastic bag consumption. Its had a massive impact and we now use around 83% fewer single-use bags than we did in 2014.
But we can still do more.
Reusable bags come in all different shapes and sizes and are made from a variety of different materials, cotton, canvas, jute to name but a few. My open mesh or string bags are super strong, longlasting, durable and washable. They may be small but they hold a great amount. They are so small in fact you can always keep a couple in your handbag so you never get caught out.