Plastic bags are ridiculous

Monday when the EcoMaids came to clean our house, I took the kids on a walk to get out of their way. We walked to our nearby Walmart Neighborhood Market despite the fact that I have a Walmart phobia. It is the closest grocery store to us, so sometimes I go there. I am careful to buy only foods we would normally buy, as far as being environmentally responsible and organic when possible. They are one of the only places I can consistently find organic garlic and they have recently started carrying organic milk. Good for them!

In my rush to get out the door with both kids, I left our reusable shopping bags at home. I told the checkout person that I'd be fine just putting the items into the stroller basket, but she didn't want to do that. I have noticed that when I walk to stores with the stroller they sometimes have policies against putting your groceries in the stroller basket, I guess because it looks like you're stealing. So, she put our items in plastic.

When I got home I was horrified to find she had used 6 PLASTIC BAGS for only 13 items!! And these were small items - two were jello packets. I could have fit all of them into one reusable bag.

Here is a picture of the groceries I bought (NOTE: cans are for donation, but I only bought non-organic items that are on the EWG Clean 15 list):



And here is the stack of plastic bags. My toddler is standing behind them to show the scale:



ACK! I was really traumatized by this experience. Why do the checkers use so many bags for so few items? Why couldn't I have put them in my stroller basket?

The plastic bags are hanging on my doorknob, waiting for me to find somewhere I can recycle them.

Ridiculous!