As you pay for your groceries, the bagger asks the inevitable question: Paper or plastic? If you say paper, your groceries are put into big paper bags that stand on their own. When you buy carryout for dinner, all the various Styrofoam containers, cups and condiments are put into paper sacks. What do you do with all of these paper bags when they’ve served their purpose? Do you just toss them out? I hope not! There are many uses for leftover paper bags that keep them out of the landfill.

That’s right. We need to do whatever possible to keep our bags out of the garbage dump. We need to figure out what other uses we have the ability to make of the leftover, no longer needed paper bags. Let’s begin with the most obvious use. Recycle the empty bags. They have the ability to go into the recycling bin right along with all of your newspapers, used computer paper, magazines, and catalogs. Recently such recycling dumpsters have been popping up in many parking lots, such as parks, churches, and shopping centers. These recycling dumpsters will accept just about each type of used paper except for cardboard. If you throw away a lot of newspaper, you can use the brown grocery bags to store the newspapers until you’ve accumulated enough to warrant a trip to the dumpster. They are the perfect size to hold the newspapers without crumpling or bending them. This gives the paper bags one more good use before being recycled.

Another use for paper bags comes up at holiday and birthday time. If you’ve to mail gifts, paper grocery bags can be cut open and used as an outer wrapper for mailing. Just be sure to use enough tape to prevent the brown paper from being torn in the mail. For example, if you’re sending a shirt in a box from a department store, you don’t need another box for mailing. Just wrap the gift-wrapped shirt box in a cut-open grocery sack, tape it shut, and write on the address.

You probably don’t want to eat lunch out each day. It’s costly and provides too many calories. You should carry your lunch two or, even better, three days a week. When you package up your lunch, don’t use a fresh, new paper bag every day. Save your carryout bags and reuse them for your lunch. Your wallet and your waist will both thank you.

Brown grocery bags are also useful for kids’ crafts. Cut open a bag and put it on the table to provide protection and to make clean-up easy. The kids can paint or play with their clay without dirtying the table. They can even paint right on the bag. Think how much paper this will save. Grocery sacks also turn these book covers into works of art by painting with poster paint, watercolors, or colorful markers.

As you can see, reusing paper bags can make one small contribution to your recycling effort.

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