Let’s quit using plastic shopping bags!

paper bag clip art

At Schmucker’s Fresh From The Farm, we’re committed to providing your family with delicious, healthy food produced locally and sustainably. Which is why we want to send it home with you in a way that’s sustainable and honours our heritage, too: reusable canvas totes or paper bags! 

Click "read more" to hear about shopping bag alternatives and new plastic shopping bag costs.

 

Why? Because plastic bags are a disaster for the environment.

  1. Plastics are made using non-renewable resources (unlike paper), including coal, natural gas and crude oil. The manufacture and disposal of plastics is a rapidly growing component of climate change.
  2. They’re hard to recycle.
  3. They take up to 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill! In fact, they may never fully decompose, instead breaking into tiny bits that are lethal to wildlife when they enter lakes and oceans.
  4. They’re wasteful. Most plastic bags are only used once, for half an hour or so, before being tossed. Natural-fiber bags can be used hundreds of times and will degrade naturally without environmental harm.
  5. Too many plastics end up in waterways, contributing to problems like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

lots of plastic

You can help!

 

When you shop at Schmucker’s Fresh From the Farm, you’re always welcome to bring your own reusable bags. If you forgot, or don’t have any suitable bags, choose from the sustainable alternatives we offer at cost (no profit to us):

 

  1. Schmucker’s Fresh From The Farm canvas tote. Just $7, they can be used again and again—and each purchase benefits the group of immigrant/refugee women who produce them! 
  2. Super-sturdy recycled-paper bag with handles; reusable and just 25 cents
  3. Old-fashioned recycled-paper grocery bag, just 10 cents
  4. Organic cotton mesh bags for both produce and shopping. From Ahima Eco.

 

You may have heard that the federal government plans to ban single-use plastics by 2021, so why not develop good habits now and join us in reducing the plastic in our lives? For now, plastic bags are still available for 10¢ each if you must, but we think you’ll like the other choices so much you’ll want to ditch the disposables from now on.

 

Tell us what you think!