In the back of my car, there’s a load of bags. More precisely, there’s one bag with a load of bags stuffed inside. They are the heavy plastic or cotton ones, emblazoned with the names of various retailers and they were usually an emergency purchase when I’d gone in to get a few things but forgotten to take a bag with me out of the back of the car.
Herself has a similar arrangement in her car. I’d go as far as claiming that there are few cars in Ireland that don’t have a bag of bags in the boot and that, if you were to take it out and sift through the contents, you’d be surprised by how many are there, while having little idea where any of them came from.
As you know, the bag of bags is a direct result of the single-use plastic bag levy which came into force more than 20 years ago. It’s a rarity now to be offered such a bag; even nostalgic in a the-past-was-awful sort of way: like lino on floors or smoking at the dinner table.
It’s also been a huge branding success. In the past two decades, the reusable shopping bag is seen as a symbol and practical example of environmental virtue in action: to such an extent that some iterations are regarded as fashionable.
No one is walking around Tesco perving on other people’s shopping bags, but among a certain cohort – among a certain age group – the tote bag has been a fashion statement for years. Not a catwalks-of-Milan fashion statement, but one where it’s clear that you buy all your clothes in vintage shops, and that your bag contains at least one book. Possibly Proust.
Of course, all tote bags are emblazoned with a logo or slogan; a band, or something vaguely environmental in tone. There is, apparently, a hierarchy to these things, though I don’t pretend to understand it, other than the fact there are few businesses of any sort nowadays that don’t have a tote bag offering. Coming up to the that C-day at the end of the year, people in the media are routinely sent all sorts of stuff in too-large boxes. And a tote will be nestling in there somewhere.
As a result, many homes have a tote bag full of tote bags. Or even several tote bags full of tote bags. Over the years, daughters have come and gone from the house and left behind a small mountain range of them. Not quite environmentally unfriendly; but perhaps a bit environmentally aloof.
Totes are usually made from cotton; which needs a lot of water and all too often pesticides and fertilisers, which in turn create nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. A 2018 study by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency estimated that to offset the carbon footprint of your tote bag, you’d have to use it 7,100 times, so every day for 20 years. If the cotton is organic, you’d have to use it 20,000 times. I now have to avoid dying for the next 50 years so the tote bags don’t do any harm.
[ Why do Irish people slather everything with insincere positivity?Opens in new window ]
Between that and the heavy plastic bags in the boots of our cars, we may be coming close to a bagageddon. But it’s worth remembering that we have arrived here with the best of intentions. The point, after all, is to reduce our carbon footprint: humans can’t be zero-carbon. We’ll always be making some sort of dent on our planet.
It may often feel that our individual contributions to this reduction attempt are infinitesimal; and that the advice on what to do regularly changes. What can and can’t go into a green bin is as complicated as quantum mechanics.
So, if you’re feeling down about it, or overwhelmed, take that feeling and stuff it into a tote bag. I’ll put it in the attic with all the others.