At some supermarkets, the clerks ask if you would like paper or plastic bags. At other supermarkets you may not be asked and the clerks just start packing in plastic bags as plastic bags cost less than paper bags. In the morning, when the kids are getting ready to go to school, you may have to decide between a plastic or a paper lunch bag. How do you choose?

Plastic bags are made from oil. When you use plastic bags, you’re using up the world’s oil supply. Oil cannot be replaced. That’s bad.

Paper bags are made from trees. When you use paper bags, you’re helping to destroy forests. One tree makes 700 paper bags. At a busy supermarket, that’s enough for only about a half an hour of bagging. That’s bad. But trees can grow again, and oil can’t.

So, how to decide? Here are some suggestions:

1. Use bags more than one time. Find another use for it. Bags can be used for garbage and for holding newspapers to be recycled. Bring sandwich bags and lunch bags that you took to school back home with you. They will do for a second lunch.

2. Don’t take a bag at all if you are only buying one or two items and don’t need one. Take back to the supermarket the bags that you saved from the last time you shopped for groceries. They can be used again for this week’s groceries. Or bring your own sturdy, canvass bag to use each time you go shopping.

3. Paper bags can be recycled and do not need to end up in a landfill. Plastic bags are difficult to recycle.

4. For lunch, don’t use bags at all. Bring a lunch box to school, instead of using a new lunch bag every day. Pack your sandwiches in reusable plastic containers instead of sandwich bags.

5. Don’t use unnecessary packaging. Take apples and bananas for lunch at school. They’re good for you and they come in their own wrappers. Buy chips, raisins, cookies, crackers, applesauce and yogurt in larger quantities and pack in reusable containers. Buy juice in bulk and bring to school in reusable plastic water or juice bottles.

Remember, you may not need a bag at all (that’s called reducing). Use the bag for something else (that’s called reusing). Recycle them when you can (that is, obviously, called recycling). And lastly, think about what you can do to help the environment and modify the way you do things (that’s called rethinking). Reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink. That makes a lot of sense.