Wash and reuse your plastic bags and aluminum foil before running out to the store for more.

What’s In It For the Planet?

  • Producing virgin aluminum is highly resource intensive. Mining bauxite - to create aluminum - is grueling on
    the environment.
  • Americans toss out enough aluminum every three months to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet
    (Aluminum Association).
  • It’s easy to wash and dry aluminum foil for reuse.
  • Plastic bags take over 1,000 years to decompose, and as a result we have the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a 3.5 million ton “plastic bag island” floating in the ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii.

What’s In It For Me?

Whether or not your city has banned the use of plastic bags, they’re still ubiquitous in most places. In fact, many of us continue to use them on a daily basis. Even if you’ve already joined the crowd of canvas-tote-carriers, consider these additional re(uses) of plastic to minimize your impact.

Reuse plastic bags… to pick up pet poop. To cover your wet umbrella. To hold toiletries when traveling. To carry your lunch to work. To wrap your shoes in your suitcase. More ideas? Share them with others on HabitChat.

Don’t forget to wash out your plastic produce bags and reuse them when you return to the market. If you’re kitchen becomes an unsightly storehouse for plastic bags, consider investing in a bamboo drying rack, or better yet,
make your own.

And what about aluminum? Sure, it may be a drag to wash, dry, and reuse aluminum, but if you’re really resourceful you’ll end up saving more than a pretty penny. Challenge yourself to use just one roll of aluminum foil for six months.
Are you an innovator? Share your ideas with others who are also taking steps to live greener today.

Finding the Sacred In…Reusing Plastic & Aluminum

It is time for me to come clean. Confession is, after all, one of our spiritual practices. So here goes. For years, I have been throwing away plastic bags.

There I have said it. Now this might not seem like a major transgression to you, but it has been weighing on my mind and soul for two reasons. First, and most obviously, each plastic bag I throw away will remain in our environment for 1,000 years. Did you know that our planet consumes about 1 million plastic bags per minute?! The second reason is that Megan is a dedicated reuser of plastic bags. I have a lot of resistance to washing plastic bags. Why? Maybe it’s the rancid food in the corners of the used bags or the feeling of wet plastic on my hands or all the upsidedown dripping plastic bags everywhere. So, more often than not, I would look at the bags and simply throw them away.

My chance for absolution came from a new campaign —Sacred Living: One Habit at a Time—led by FCCB’s own Hilary Perkins. She is developing a project that encourages people to change one behavior that impacts the environment. Last fall, I and about 6 other FCCB members signed pledges to develop one new earth-saving habit over the next year. I chose to wash and reuse plastic bags. The first thing I did was to buy a wooden bag drying “tree” which removed the unsightly mess of drying bags. Next, I stopped throwing the bags away. There hasn’t been a change in my feelings about washing bags—I still loathe it—but I had a realization while washing them one time that I could stop using plastic bags in Satya’s lunch. Suddenly, this one pledge is changing two behaviors. There is a kind of ripple effect in our lives when we make changes in our lives. Watch for more opportunities to participate in Sacred Living in the coming months. I hope all who are making New Years’ resolutions of one kind or another (including the urgent need for resolutions for peace in places like Gaza, Iraq and Afganistan) will join me in praying for those changes to move beyond pledges, intentions and resolutions to true habits. As the year unfolds, I would love to hear how you are doing with your intentions. God’s grace is always there to free us. And don’t forget, your pastors are always available to hear your confessions.
- Rev. Adam Blons
Minister of Community Life, Berkeley

 

Wanna Learn More?

Discover more ways to use and reuse plastic bags

Read about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Honor our beautiful Planet Earth

Learn about other faith-based environmental initiatives at Green Faith

Read about the San Francisco and Los Angeles plastic
bag bans

Join fellow open-space activists for a PARK(ing) Day

 

Wanna Do More?

  • Give up plastic bags and opt instead for reusable lunch containers, biodegradable bags, or canvas totes.
  • Consider reusing or giving up other single-use items like plastic utensils and water bottles.
  • Use glass Tupperware instead of aluminum foil for
    food storage.

Have some suggestions of your own? Share them on HabitChat.