:: Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 5: Final Weekly Review & Overall Project Reflection ::

:: WEEK 5
How is it that it is already week five of our Eco-Chic Lifestyle change? That time has really flown by. Five weeks ago, I started out on a journey to use only reusable bags when shopping at the grocery store or places such as Wal-Mart or Target. This last week was another rather easy week. Once again I hardly went shopping (and here I thought I shopped way too much in the past). How sad really...I can only think of one shopping trip to Wal-Mart and I was just tagging along with a friend. I ended up getting three items and simply carried them out in my hands. My friend, on the other hand, ended up leaving with four plastic bags. I must admit that I felt slightly defeated at the fact that he had used plastic bags. I will have to educate my friend more on why it is so important to not use plastic bags.

 Junk floating in the Tiber River in Rome, Italy. GROSS!!!

Oh wait...there was one other trip to Wal-Mart. My oldest and I went in to get some stuff for my dad's birthday. I remembered to grab one bag to bring in with us. This time I actually went through a check out lane with a person (I prefer the self-check out lane). I still had yet to see what the checkout person would do knowing that I had my own bags. She simply handed me the items I had purchased and I packed them in my reusable bag. Easy peasy!!!!! This showed me that I can pack my own bags when going through the lane with a checkout person.

Seeing as this is the last week we officially report on our progress, I think the only thing I will be focusing on for the next week will be to educate my friends more on why I feel it is so important that to use reusable bags vs. plastic bags.

:: FINAL OVERVIEW
My SMART goal of using reusable bags at least three times a week when shopping at the grocery store or discount stores did not change from the original goal. I seriously thought I shopped more than I apparently do.  My busy schedule has kept me out of the stores for the most part (which is also good for my pocketbook). As a result, I've had to use my reusable bags every time I've gone shopping.

This project has been very beneficial to me. It really opened my eyes to the number of plastic bags one collects over the week. If I counted up all the times I shopped in the last five weeks and figured that there would have been at a minimum two plastic bags for each trip, that would be a total of 30-some plastic bags cluttering up my kitchen drawers. I've read articles where states are charging for people to use plastic bags. I think that's a great that people have to pay for those bags...I only hope it makes them realize that its a much bigger cost on the environment when they use them.

I certainly hope that by not using 30ish plastic bags in the last five weeks the environment changed..be it that the landfills did not gain these awful contaminates that take 10-20 years to decompose or an animal that did not get tangled in one of the plastic bags I choose to throw away in the past. By not using plastic bags, I'm casting my vote with my dollar, as Dr. V would say. I don't want plastic bags to clog up our environment any longer.

I will definitely continue to use reusable bags. Now that I am in a routine of using them, the task has become quite easy. I've even cleaned out the back of my truck and placed them all in one bigger bag, so they are not all over my truck. I now know that I can use them for my meat products, as they are after all...washable. I think the question really should be..."Why would you want to stop making the environment a better place?" Our lifestyle change should have made our environment better not only for ourselves, but also for those around us. This class is definitely opening my eyes to the things I am doing that are making out environment worse and to the things that I can change about my habits that will be our world a better, safer place to live.

One recommendation that I would have for other that want to make a lifestyle change is to have a positive attitude about anything you try int life. Sometimes we succeed, other times we fail. Learn from your mistakes so that in the future you will not make the same mistake over and over. By thinking in positives....the world is yours. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!!!