A bit green as an eco-bag lady (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

A bit green as an eco-bag lady

7:32pm Thursday 7th August 2008

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I’ve got enough ‘bags-for-life’ to last me several lifetimes. Having been browbeaten into feeling guilty for even contemplating using a plastic bag while out shopping, I eventually got round to buying one of those big supermarket eco bags. That was several months ago, and I can probably count the number of times I’ve used it on one hand. I keep it in the boot of my car, where it very rarely sees the light of day.

It has been joined by another big eco bag, and a couple of smaller ones. A growing family of environmentally-friendly reusable bags, all hardly ever used. Soon I’ll have a boot full of eco bags - it’ll be so full I’ll have to put all the plastic bags full of shopping on the back seat of my car.

The reason my eco bags are never used is because every time I go to the supermarket I forget all about them. It’s not until all my shopping is laid out on the conveyor belt, ready for the cashier to start beeping it all through, that I realise I don’t have my special eco-friendly bags-for-life with me.

Sometimes I buy another one, knowing full well it will simply be added to the growing collection of them in my boot. But usually I end up using another load of plastic bags, risking an exaggerated sigh from the cashier. "You do know that’ll be five pence don’t you?" one recently snapped, shooting me a look that nearly turned me to stone. I found myself gazing down in shame, muttering something about forgetting my eco bags. I felt like I was treading huge dirty great carbon footprints all the way out of the store.

I try and do my bit to save the earth. I recycle all my newspapers, magazines, tins and bottles, (is it just me who winces when chucking wine bottles into the recycling bin? There’s no quiet way of doing it. All those alcohol units smashing into pieces for all the neighbours to hear), I only fill the kettle with the amount of water I need, I use low energy lightbulbs (even though they’re ugly and annoyingly slow) and I even turn off the tap while brushing my teeth, so as not to waste water.

It’s just this eco bag thing I can’t get the hang of. They should put flashing neon signs up in the entrances of supermarkets - "Have you remembered your eco bag?" Then again, that’d be an unnecessary use of electricity. Not very eco-friendly.

I don’t know what the solution is. The older I get, the worse my short-term memory gets, so the chances of me remembering to open my boot and take out one of my collection of eco bags are probably getting slimmer.

I don’t want to do online shopping because I quite like the hunter-gatherer thing of wandering around a supermarket. It’s only when I reach the till that I turn into the hunted, cowering like a trapped deer when I dare to ask for a plastic bag.

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