Recently, I've been reading quite a few anti-plastic bag articles that contain statements like, "Plastic bags are evil," and advocate taking all your plastic bags to the local recycler and replacing them immediately with reusable bags.

Now, as you know, I'm all for refusing new plastic bags while shopping and bringing my own reusable bags with me. I don't see any need for the creation of new plastic bags in this world, not with all the environmental problems associated with their manufacture and disposal.

But once a bag has been created, once it's already here in this world, is it really evil? I don't think so. In fact, a few weeks ago I posted an ad to my local Freecycle group requesting used plastic grocery bags from anyone who had a bunch they weren't going to use. Why? Because far from being evil, plastic grocery bags are quite handy. Read more about ways to reuse plastic bags instead of tossing them out.