I’m living proof that sustainability – or being “green” – is first about convenience before saving the planet. I have put my cloth grocery bags aside so many times like so many good intentions. I’m embarrassed to admit that I often find myself at the checkout counter without my sustainable totes: laying limp once again in my trunk.

Do I dash back out to the car to snag them? No. Too much effort. I do, however, wave a dismissive hand at the clerk when they automatically reach for the plastic bag, and I say, “Save a landfill.” I cradle my items like chord wood and head for the door, providing I’m in the 9-items or less line. Anymore than nine and I end up with plastic bags swinging from my hands.

Then, like the ghost of Christmas future visiting Scrooge, the universe sent Kayla Evans to haunt me and my shameful plastic bag ways. She came with this incredible info graphic on the suffocating power plastic bags have on our world.

That’s it. I am now freshly armed with my cloth bags sitting next to me in my car so that I can be more focused on saving landfills. Thanks Kayla and LearnStuff.com for this not-so-gentle-reminder that we’re all in this together.