Earth Day ~ April 22nd ~ Reusable Shopping Bags

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Today is Earth Day and the focus this year is to help end plastic pollution. 
Plastic is threatening our planet's survival, from poisoning and injuring marine life to disrupting human hormones, from littering our beaches and landscapes to clogging our streams and landfills. 
A few weeks ago my Dad was shopping at Lowe's in Chicago, Illinois, and they wanted to charge him 7¢ for a shopping bag and he was flabbergasted. 
The new "checkout bag" tax applies to ALL Chicago retailers, and applies to both paper and plastic bags. Shoppers who do not have their own bags will be charged the 7¢ at the checkout. 
What is a frugal shopper to do? 
Make your own shopping bags! 
In doing so, we can help end the plastic pollution caused by plastic shopping bags and can even save some money when retails like Target pay us to bring our own shopping bags. 

Here is a shopping bag I made on Wednesday using fabric I bought at a yard sale last weekend. 
Here is a link to the pattern for this bag. 
Mean Queen over at Life After Money makes her own shopping bags also and even gives them away free to other shoppers. 
There are multiple videos on YouTube on how to make your own shopping bags as well. 
Here is some fabric that my daughter picked up recently at a yard sale that I'm going to use to make my next shopping bag. 

This is a nice sturdy canvas fabric, which is perfect for a reusable shopping bag. 
Let's do what we can to save our planet and use reusable shopping bags when we shop. 
Belinda~ Living within our Means ~