"green"

Call it "green", call it environmentally conscious, call it "I never felt shameful about carrying a plastic bag home from the grocery store till I shopped in Hong Kong". I have to admit that my minimal efforts would not qualify me to fit into any of the "green" categories. While in Auburn I did manage to form good habits of separating cardboard, paper, and plastics; and yes, I even drove them to the recycling center. I'm sure that the fumes from driving my carefully separated recycled goods only canceled out my attempts at saving the planet. Nonetheless, over the past couple months I have found myself avoiding carrying a plastic bag at all costs. Perhaps an example scenario would help to elaborate my point. Let's say I am in the market to buy some vegetables. In the U.S., I would hop in my car, drive to Kroger, stroll through the isle with my over sized cart that rolls whichever way it pleases [still one of the great mysteries in my book-why shopping carts always seemed to roll sideways or roll normally until you were trying to pass someone and would inevitably jolt into the side of their cart-I digress...] after selecting said veggies, proceed to the self-checkout, dig through my purse for my wallet, place my produce in plastic Kroger bags and waltz out to my car without thinking twice about it. In Hong Kong, hop on the lift, walk across the street to the store, pick up a basket, try desperately to run into as few people as I can while maneuvering through the smaller isles towards the vegetables. After spotting what I need from the second row of people huddled around the desired item, I try to grab whatever I need as quickly as possible, apologizing and reaching across 4 sets of arms in the process, then when I reach the check out I begin to dig through my purse with hope that I packed my compact shopping bag so I don't have to face the look of requesting a plastic bag, after the grocer packs my items I swiftly move along for the next customer. But hypothetically speaking, let's say I forgot to put my compact little shopping bag in my purse one afternoon and instead of asking for a plastic bag to carry things home, I paid for my vegetables and just put them in my purse-hypothetically speaking of course. In the U.S. if a grocer even hinted at the idea of stuffing vegetables in my purse instead of a plastic bag I would have thought they were a little extreme, or so "green"if you will. In the midst of making light of a legitimate concern in a big city, I have to laugh at myself defaulting to broccoli in my purse over a plastic bag.