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Ever since the pseudo savior of our planet, Al Gore, started blabbing about how the earth was going to melt-down, companies have been coming up with new ways to profit off our good intentions. The most noticeable to me recently is the reusable shopping bag. I get a kick looking at the smug faces of people as they check out of the grocery store with their assortment of painted plastic bags with the thought that they are superior to others because they have coughed up anywhere from $.99 to $30 for their bags. Granted, some of the reusable bags were given away for free as part of store promotions, but the people with those don’t see to have the attitude I am describing. But I digress..

Facts: Most bags are manufactured in China. Shipped thousands of miles overseas, made with nonwoven polypropylene (which is not recycled plastic) and take years longer to decompose than the traditional plastic bag you get at the grocery store. These bags require 28 times as munch energy to produce as the standard disposable bag and eight times as much as a paper sack.

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, if you don’t reuse the bag, you are actually worse off by buying or taking one. There is a plus side however. Used as they were intended, the totes can be an environmental boon. This will only be the case if the people that have these bags used them each time they go to the store. Walking out with half your groceries in reusable bags and the other half in standard plastic bags will not do the trick. The switch to reusable should be an all or nothing proposition.

Not all bags are made from 100% new material. There are several stores that sell bags containing no more than 30% recycled plastic (a nice start). The other thing to consider is paint used in applying a logo to the bags may contain lead. Since the majority of these bags are produced in China…well, you get the point.