tote bags are fast fashion too.

Plastic bags are a problem! But are tote bags the great environmental solution we think they are?

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[kalinapier]

Outside my local supermarket there is a "bag bin" for people to leave their excess tote bags. If you forget your reusable bags on the way into the supermarket, you can just grab a couple from the bin. This could be one way of communally sharing tote bags and reducing the need to buy a bag at the supermarket.

[hannaheyles]

Our local high street (in Melbourne) has tote bag libraries - tote bags available in various shops, you borrow if you don't have a bag and bring back another time. They are just hung on a coat rack type thing by the shop entrances. There is a community initiative to make the whole high street plastic free (they also have a place to donate tupperware that has lost the lid and they try to reunite bottoms and tops and then give it away)

[CaityLouise]

Cannot say how much rage the ‘here is the t shirt you have to wear for this event’ makes me. I’m never going to wear this again, why are you inflicting this on me so I need to keep it for years hoping I’ll want to wear it/craft with it before inevitably donating it to a charity shop that doesn’t want it 😭

[sorchanc]

My gym has yearly summer and winter 'games' which are so much fun and great for the gym community spirit, but up until the last one a couple of weeks ago you always 'had' to buy a new t-shirt for each event. Before the most recent summer games I spoke to the gym owner and asked him to think about designing a t-shirt that wasn't dated, so you could re-wear the t-shirt yearly. He totally agreed and did just that. It's a small thing (ideally there would be no fecking t-shirt necessary at all...) but I did feel happy that I spoke up and that there was a positive result!

[bernadette]

I put folded tote bags in my most used handbags. This way I am always prepared when I happen to go to the library or a flea market or grocery shopping...

[sunnys]

"The most 'sustainable' bag is the bag you already own" - I remember learning about this at university in a sustainability class focused on experiential learning and student-led community projects. The project for one student group was helping the university campus store transition from plastic to reusable canvas bags and determining the most 'sustainable' or good-for-the-planet options. It turns out the best option is using a bag you already own - which at the time surprised me, because I assumed the best option was going to be the reusable bag option. I didn't consciously realize that there were options beyond the initial 2 choices lol

[AppleDoodle]

I agree with all the points except O - I've never been asked "plastic or reusable?", the question has always been "would you like a bag?" which gives you the option to answer "no thanks, I've brought my own". Maybe this is a regional thing, but I've lived in several places across England and Scotland and it's been the same everywhere I've shopped.

[rosea]

Some ideas:
1. Put a tote bag in every handbag/ backpack you own - so you will never be without one
2. Make a blanket/ throw/ quilt/ cushion covers with your old tote bags, or cut and applique the tote design onto a t-shirt
3. Decide on a use for a specific tote bag: e.g. I have a library book bag for taking my books to/ from the library

[didreams]

I once got my birthday present wrapped in a tote bag from a friend, and it was the most useful wrapping paper ever. I've now also started putting presents or like, the wine I bring to dinner parties in tote bags I don't use anymore! Highly recommend ✨

[fernw]

I think I'm quite fortunate since the question "do you need a bag" is really common where I live and bringing your own bag is expected. Phrasing is definitely important in influencing our responses to things.

[AlessandrineCox]

I signed up for my next run's "green bib" program, where instead of getting a medal and a t-shirt, they make a small charitable donation. Win-win.

[abstractforest]

Aldi has trained me to not use any bag at all! Instead I keep boxes or laundry baskets in my trunk (unfortunately I have to drive for my groceries, America) and then I just move all my groceries from the cart directly to my car and carry them into the house in the boxes. Easy peasy. I’ve started doing it at other grocery stores too.

[osman]

I do applaud everyone who is trying to consume less, and making manageable & sustainable changes to their lifestyle to achieve this. We usually don't need the T-shirt, we usually don't need the tote.

But on a dour numerical note: just want to caution about the 20, 000 uses figure: this eye-catching finding compares the worst kinds of cotton bags with a reference (incinerated plastic bag). It's an extremely limited measure of environmental impact (ozone depletion), chosen from the study and quoted widely because it has the biggest disparity between the two types of bag. Across most of the other important metrics of environmental impact (e.g., climate change, energy use, human toxicity, eutrophication, etc) the required reuse number is something like 50-1400 for conventional cotton, and 150-3800 for organic cotton. So as you rightly point out, your favourite tote bags aren't a "free lunch" environmentally! But there's a good chance that using it a couple of hundred times will have 'paid' for its use, over a plastic option.

Beyond that point, these numbers are flawed also because the base for comparison is an incinerated bag, and only a tiny fraction of bags are incinerated. Some are recycled, but most end up in landfill, to eventually become microplastics that contaminate our soil and water systems for thousands of years. Or in the ocean, choking and sterilizing sea life. All of these "reuse number" comparisons weigh an option which avoids the above consequences (but is more energy- and water-intensive), with a plastic product that comprises of very little substance at all. Plastic bags are so cheap precisely because making them is resource-efficient, thus they score relatively impressively on metrics for resource use like energy, water, ozone depletion, etc. But expressing the comparison in those terms ignores all of the avoided environmental harms that come from making and using single-use plastics.

[mbickd]

I have a lovely arty friend who gives gifts in totes that no longer serve her instead of disposable party bags. It’s honestly been so nice to receive, it’s cute, and I feel like it’s part of the gift I can then use :)

[hannabusse]

I agree...but...

A person does need some amount of tote bags. I need probably 2-3 for groceries. I frequently use one when I go to the library. I use one for gym clothes and shoes and stuff. And they are handy to have in a pinch: no knitting storage? tote bag. taking cat toys to the cat-sitter? tote bag. bringing a blanket, a hat, sunglasses, and a fruit salad to a picnic? tote bag. moving? tote bag.

I proudly own five tote bags. I ashamedly own many more. But man, those first five, necessary, useful bags are great.

[Viktoria]

For several years now (and god knows how long it’s been in rotation before that), I have been using a grocery bag constructed of a fabric from an old broken umbrella. It was made by my husband’s grandma too, which warms my heart ❤️
Great video, Leena!

[ReinaMWilliams]

This made me think about all my tote bags. I don't buy them, but there are giveaways, gifts, etc. The problem of how to get nonprofits to stop so much waste is on my mind a lot, like how they send out tote bags, calendars, cards, sticky address labels, all unsolicited--even environmental orgs! I send back their mailers and ask to be taken off their mailing list, and now I think I'll do a premade note adding that I wish they'd stop with all the "free gifts" because those have a cost to all of us.

[hana]

I feel like people forget that a plastic bag is very much reusable too. I have been reusing them for years. They take literally no space so I tend to have two in every bag/backpack, which greatly minimizes the number of times I need to buy a bag (total of maybe 2 a year?).

[madi]

One of the supermarkets in our town has a tote bag tree, where you can take one if needed and bring old ones you're not using.

I love most of my tote bags; they're so practical and fun. My favorite being a Kurt Vonnegut one that I made myself. Very interesting video though! Thank you, Leena, for doing the research and thinking the thoughts. I'd love to live as sustainable as possible but find it hard to get all the informations with the limited time I have on my hands. So these kinds of videos are very appreciated.

[grreeeeee]

the 20k number is a bit oversimplified! I found the NYT article and found the Danish study it was based on.

"The absolute highest number of reuse times for the climate change impact category was obtained for composite and cotton carrier bags. In particular, conventional cotton carrier bags should be reused at least 50 times before being disposed of; organic cotton carrier bags should be reused 150 times based on their environmental production cost. This calculated number of primary reuse times for cotton bags complies with results of previous studies. "


"Organic cotton bags: Reuse for grocery shopping at least 149 times for climate change, and up to 20000 times considering all indicators; reuse as waste bin bag if possible, otherwise incinerate.
Conventional cotton bags: Reuse for grocery shopping at least 52 times for climate change, and up to 7100 times considering all indicators; reuse as waste bin bag if possible, otherwise incinerate"

The reason 'all indicators' is at 20k instead of 150 is because organic cotton, which is not treated by pesticides and fertilizers, yields a smaller crop. so it's not as black and white as we want it to be. Plus - how many of those cotton bags are actually organic? The other thing we aren't taking into account is the number of bags required per shopping trip and how much weigh each of these bags can hold - cotton wins both of those categories by far.

I encourage anyone interested in this sort of thing to actually look up the thing. We like easy heuristics, but there aren't any when it comes to climate change. Except just don't consume anything at all. lol