Much ado about garbage

I am always on the lookout for ways to make my life a little greener. I clean my house with green cleaners, I compost food scraps, and I buy recycled-content school supplies. But there is one aspect of my daily life that leaves me in an environmental quandary ... the garbage bag.

Back in the day (before I started using reusable shopping bags), I used the plastic shopping bags that I got at the grocery store as garbage bags. But now that I bring my handy-dandy reusable totes to the store, I'm left holding the bag when it comes to my garbage can.

There is the "no bag" option, which may work for some, but is not an option in my town, where garbage must be contained in bags for removal. Several companies now make conscience-soothing biodegradable trash bags. These are perfect for small percentage of Americans whose garbage is sent to one of the 13 "bioreactor " landfills in the U.S. that encourage decomposition.

But in my area, and the majority of this country, garbage is tightly sealed up in facilities where strict controls are used to prevent decomposition (to keep pollution out of the water, air, and soil). I have a hard time making room in my budget for biodegradable trash bags that will essentially be encased in an air-tight tomb for the next few centuries.

So my current solution to the garbage bag dilemma is twofold. First, I try to reduce waste whenever possible by buying less stuff, recycling, and composting.

For the stuff that actually does make it to the trash can, I use plastic shopping bags that I pick up from my non-reusable-bag-using friend. Sure, I'm enabling her plastic bag consumption habit, but I'm also reusing bags that were already destined for the landfill. A far from perfect solution, I'll admit.

And that's why the simple garbage bag remains my elusive eco-quandry.

Jenn Savedge's blog posts are provided by LifeWire, a part of The New York Times Company.