Say no to paper bags

Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:

Pete has been shopping too bringing home successfully an avocado and bananas (items the local shops stock without encasing them in plastic). Although he refused a plastic bag at the Bagel Bakery he found it impossible to reject the paper bag with a dozen bagels in. It's not a proper disaster as we are sure to re-use this bag (probably at the bottom of our compost bin’s mini caddy).

Verdict: it’s surprisingly difficult to stop the Bagel shop girls dishing out bags. Clearly we’re all going to need clean material bags tucked about our person just in case we are drawn into the shops.