At home and when I’m out I always try to avoid wasting plastic bags, and actually I try to not even use them when possible. But when I do get them, I always re-use or return them to the store for recycling. I can not ever bring myself to throw an empty plastic bag into another plastic bag, which is usually lining the trash!

In my office, each desk has a trash can, and each trash can is lined with a plastic bag. Well, recently I realized that if I put anything into the trash at my desk, even just a tiny little piece of trash, that it gets replaced at night by the cleaning crew. It just seems so wasteful to replace that bag every night, especially when I work so hard to avoid ever throwing out plastic bags.

So here is my tip for all you office workers who are trying to be green. Rather than put your trash into your own bin at your desk, use a community trash in a kitchen or break room. That way your personal trash will never get dumped and you will save one bag per day!

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Originally posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 4:27 PM .