As we continue our journey through a busy 2010, it’s outrageous to think about the amount of shopping we historically carry out now in America and world-wide. Whether it’s numerous visits into the supermarket as we keep our kitchen’s stocked for magnificent meals and tasty goodies or those sometimes dreaded (yet skillful) “6 bags on each arm” walks through the neighborhood mall, all of it adds up to a whole lot of needless garbage. One of the most blatant examples of this waste is disposable grocery bags.
An estimated 100 billion plastic shopping bags are consumed each year within the USA, according to the Wall-Street Journal. Most plastic bags wind up in landfills furthermore the rest frequently end up in rivers, ponds, lakes, streams or in the sea, where animals can ingest or become tangled in them. Considering the number of shopping bags that are consumed and wasted each year, the time is now to extend the word about the constructive benefits of eco-friendly reusable grocery bags. After all, the majority of us desire to give back to our families, friends and communities as often as possible.
Adopting a BYOB strategy in our individual shopping habits is a simple way to do exactly that. If we are able to raise awareness at this time, the positive impact for the environment is immense for 2010 and well into the future. Numerous metropolitan areas have already made gradual but significant advancement in promoting the use of eco friendly bags in recent years. Motivating consumers with plastic and paper bag bans, savings at the register for reusable bag usage and tax motivations are a few to speak of.
Save the Bay’s 4th yearly report on the most garbage-strewn sites in the state further demonstrates the need for BYOB. The 50-year-old environmental advocacy group focused on 10 explicit bay-area sites where nearly 15,000 plastic bags were recovered in one day last year in their account. Here’s an passage of an article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Kelly Zito.
According to (Save the Bay’s) research, Californians use about 19 billion plastic bags each year, 3.8 million in the Bay Area. The average use time for the bags – made using about 12 million barrels of oil each year in the United States – is about 12 minutes. In addition to the hundreds of years it can take for a plastic bag to decompose in a landfill, the bags also force downtime when fed into traditional recycling equipment. Typically, the bags get wound into conveyor belts or gears and must be cut out by hand.
Bans on plastic bags aren’t really the only effective means to scale back detrimental waste attributable to disposable bags. PlasTaxes, which tax consumers at the register for using plastic bags when shopping, were being primarily launched by the Irish. John Roach of National Geographic reported in 2008 on the worldwide momentum that’s been building because Ireland instituted a PlasTax in 2003. The Irish showed they could decrease plastic bag consumption by 90% or more. Momentum is rising internationally, predominantly in America. From Washington, DC to Edmonds, WA to North Pole, AK, communities and governments are developing a global trend to cut back the harmful environmental effects of disposable shopping bags. In the great state of Hawaii, the governing body is currently taking into account a bill to ban single-use plastic bags (SUP), or to establish a minimal charge to use SUP bags.
Examine just how smoking is becoming taboo in America. Indoor smoking bans have caught on like wild-fire. In the same way, who’s to say the use of disposable bags won’t turn out to be taboo at some point in the (hopefully near) future? The use of eco-friendly recycled grocery bags is certainly picking up steam. Our individual choices to carry our recycled shopping bags can go a good deal farther than we imagine. That’s what BYOB is all about.
Of course, plastic and paper bags should be recycled and it’s important to remember most large retailers including Albertsons and Wal-Mart will recycle plastic bags for you (just need to bring them your accumulated stash). That being said, a BYOB shopping plan can make your life a great deal easier because there is no longer a need to accumulate that cupboard filled with plastic bags or figure out what and when to deal with it. Keeping a few eco bags in the car or backpack is a good way to make sure you possess them when required. So give back this year by remembering to BYOB! No matter whether it be at a convenience store, the shopping mall, or while grocery shopping, we can make a difference for the environment and help increase consciousness one transaction at a time. For the struggle to eradicate disposable shopping bag waste, 2010 is our moment
Albert Jefferson is a greatly accomplished journalist talking about eco and sustainability matters plus extending the ideal to organizations to employ eco promotional products specifically reusable shopping bags to portray mutually their trade name and recognition for this world.
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