Reduce Reuse Recycle

There is a reason recycling is last in the environmental mantra: Reduce Reuse Recycle. Recycling involves a lot of costs.

Recycling is great in theory, but in practice, it has higher costs than one might think. Used materials must be trucked to recycling centers, and is sometimes shipped overseas for recycling. Then it has to be reprocessed, using more energy and causing more emissions. If it is successfully recycled and not sorted out as trash, then it uses more energy to transport it back to the consumer.

What may be worse is to consider what happens when plastic bags do get to recycling centers. Unfortunately, many of them are not usable. They get contaminated by other garbage, mixed with other materials. Even if they are clean, they jam machines creating expensive slow-downs and can pose a danger to recycling workers. Sorting it out is just not economically viable or technically possible. Most recyclers don’t even accept them.

The fact is, recycling is not enough to solve our plastic bag problems. Fewer than 4% of plastic bags are recycled and those that are cannot be turned back into bags.

We simply cannot recycle our way out of this problem. We need to reuse first.

REDUCE the resources we use, REUSE the resources we have taken, THEN RECYCLE.

Use our bags to help reduce your bag use. Request a quote for bags for your work or group, or try bags from our sister site, SnapSac, smart, stylish bags that unfold when you need them and fold up neatly when you don’t.